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THE WAE 



CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES. 



h 



C. C. S. FARRAR, 



or BOLIVAR COUNTY, MISS. 




BLELOCK & CO.: 

CAIRO, ILLS.; MEMPHIS, TENN. ; PADUCAH, KY. 

1 8 i. 



t 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., 

In th(> Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for tlie Eastern 



District of Pennsylvania. 



^^7 3 3 



/\ 



CONTENTS. 



PART I. 

CAUSES OF THE WAR. 

PAGB 

I. The Revolutionary Character of the Age 7 

The French Revolution '20 

The American Revolution 22 

II. The Democratic Principles 26 

Liberty of Conscience , 30 

Popular Sovereignty 53 

Demagogues 78 

Equality 81 

III. Public Morals ; 109 

Private Morals 122 

Influence of Democracy on Religion. ..^ 128 

IV. State Rights 133 

Nullification 117 

PART II. 

CONSEQUENCES OF THE WAR. 

Geographical and Political Unities of the Nation 175 

Southern Society 180 

Reconstruction of the Union 184 

The Consequences of Southern Indepetidcnce 190 

Secession 2;)3 

Conclusion 250 



THE WAR: 

ITS CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES. 



PART I. 

CAUSES OF THE WAR. 



I. The Revolutionary Character of the Age. 

For a solution of the war which is now afflicting us, 
we must look deeper than is customary. The cause 
does not lie so near the surface as is generally sup- 
posed. No doubt the immediate provocation is cor- 
rectly assigned; but the negro agitation is symptomatic 
merely, and has been the occasion, not the cause, of the 
war. The disease, which is idiopathic, lies deep at the 
vitals of society, and is irremediable, because born of 
the social decompositions of the Age. If such a paradox 
be allowed, I should say it must kill before it can be 
cured, and society, like the phoenix, spring afresh from 
its own ashes. In other words, the malady resides in 
the fundamental principles of the government, and the 
remedy can come only by the slow corrections of time; 
that is, by a process of elimination and renewal. The 
development of the social evolution, according to the 
law of growth, will leave the disease behind, by carrying 
society out of the age to which it belongs. Every period 
of life has its own complaints ; our society is yet in its 

(7) 



8 THE REVOLUTIOXARY CHARACTER OF THE AGE. 

infancy ; it has many elements undeveloped, many organs 
that are merely rudimental. These elements and organs 
must come forth ; they must take their places at the 
basis of government; they must have themselves repre- 
sented by appropriate institutions, and be enabled to 
exercise their peculiar functions in determining the prog- 
ress of the nation. These developments are seldom ac- 
complished without shocks, more or less violent, to the 
social system. True science alone can mitigate the evil 
and facilitate the necessary parturitions ; for they are, 
in a manner, new births, which society perpetually un- 
dergoes, and the highest art of which the human mind 
is capable is needed to aid its painful travails. *The 
present is just such a paroxysm. The charlatanry now 
presiding at the national accouchement can only aggra- 
vate the throes of labor; and if society survive its min- 
istrations, it may be thankful to its own imperishable- 
vigor and the blind energies of nature. 

The grand civilization of the world, so far from being 
finished, is but little more than just begun. In the man- 
ner of its development, it is still subjugated to the pas- 
sions of mankind, and scarcely listens to the voice of 
reason. It is, therefore, yet in the epoch of its spon- 
taneous movement, which is necessarily more or less 
erratic, and wars the almost inevitable consequence. 
When it shall enter upon its next stage — its reflective 
development — its course will be more steady, and wars, 
perhaps, if they cease not altogether, w^ill at least give 
precedence to reason and reflection. 

The civilization of this country, more special in its 
character and less grand and complicated in its move- 
ment, obeys the same laws which govern the develop- 



THE REVOLUTIONARY CHARACTER OF THE AGE. 9 

ment of the general civilization of the world, of which 
it is an episode, or rather a component part. It, too, 
like the other, unfolds by a compound action, and has 
its spontaneous and reflective modes of development. 
The former method, which answers to the youth of 
humanity, or to that early period of life which is given 
over to passion and impulse, is nearly always accom- 
panied by violent revolutions, which seldom pass off 
without leaving behind them social changes of a radical 
nature, and depositing at the foundations of society 
principles other than those they found there. 

These social cataclysms, beneficial in the long run, 
are generally destructive of those conditions of society 
which brought them on, and of the persons who conduct 
them. Like Saturn, they devour their own offspring, 
but leave in society, which is never entirely destroyed 
by them, the seeds of future improvements, which more 
or less time is needed to germinate and carry forward 
to institutions, which are their legitimate fruit. 

This idea, under existing circumstances, is not con- 
solatory to the present generation ; but it is preventive 
of false hopes and consequent disappointments. The 
very knowledge of the existence of such a social fact, 
if we make use of it, might go a little way toward miti- 
gating the evils of the times, and perhaps might hasten 
their ultimate eradication, and bring on an earlier sub- 
stitution, at the base of society, of principles which the 
revolution requires in the place of those already there. 
Otherwise, if we persist in obstinate ignorance of it, 
many long years might be wasted by the blind forces of 
nature in accomplishing what a little reflection would 
show to be the obvious purpose of the revolution. 

2* 



10 THE REVOLUTIONARY CHARACTER OF THE AGE. 

The hitherto undiscovered laws of a kind of social 
philosophy, which had such a powerful agency in de- 
stroying the institutions of past eras, are only just 
beginning to be suspected in our day; and the bare 
comprehension of the fact that such laws exist, consti- 
tutes the glory of our age. The application of these 
laws, so far as we know anything about them, might not 
be inappropriate at the present time; and an investiga- 
tion of the fundamental principles of our society would 
doubtless aid us in whatever use we might see proper to 
make of them. The present is certainly a desperate 
crisis in our political aftairs. If there be such a thing 
as a social science, capable of explaining our situation, 
and of rectifying the errors of an ignorant charlatanry 
which has brought us to this pass, now is the time and 
the occasion, if ever, for it to exert itself in our behalf. 

We have long been in the habit of idolizing our form 
of government ; of believing that it alone, of all other 
social systems, was capable of affording liberty, security, 
and happiness to mankind; and that society could enjoy 
order and progress only under the segis of its political 
principles. It was deemed to have been organized with 
a special view to internal peace and domestic tranquil- 
lity ; while it was not defective in capacity for success- 
ful resistance to external aggression. The opinion pre- 
vailed that revolutions, so common and ruinous in other 
countries, were utterly excluded by the terms of this 
organization; because, in a government where all the 
power is in the hands of the people — where, in short, 
the government and people are one and the same thing 
— there is nothing to revolutionize, and nobody to do it; 
for it was difficult to conceive how the people could rebel 
against themselves. 



THE REVOLUTIONARY CHARACTER OF THE AGE. 11 

It was said that power , habitually in the hands of a 
whole communitj^ loses all the ordinary associated ideas 
of power, for the want of opposition — something to oper- 
ate upon. For example : we perceive no exertion of 
power in the motion of the planetary system, but a very 
strong one in the movement of a whirlwind ; it is because 
we see obstructions in the latter, but none in the former. 
Where the government is not in the hands of the people, 
there you find opposition, you perceive two contending 
interests, and get an idea of the exercise of power; and 
whether this power be in the hands of the government 
or of the people, or whether it change from side to side, 
it is always to be dreaded. Fixed in the hands of the 
whole people, it was then thought to be destroyed for- 
ever.* 

Another happy consequence of this political system 
was said to be the facility of changing the structure of 
government^ whenever and as often as the society shall 
think there is anything in it to amend. This did indeed 
seem to be a wondrous faculty possessed by the system, 
and has been exercised so often that no room is left to 
doubt its existence. As for the capacity of the people 
for self-government, no question was made of it — it was 
assumed as a matter of course — and the right to govern 
themselves flowed as a necessary consequence from their 
capacity for that office. 

These, and many others of like kind, were plausible 
arguments in the case, and were so agreeable to the 
sense of the people, that few were disposed to contradict 
them. But, as little as the thought has hitherto been 

* See Joel Barlow's Political Writings. 



12 THE REVOLUTIONARY CHARACTER OF THE AGE. 

entertained, yet it is true that the social condition of 
this country is, more than all others in the world, ex- 
posed to perturbations from its own organic principles; 
and the present war is but one of a series of shocks des- 
tined to convulse society here for a long time to come, 
unless its radices, its very roots are speedily extirpated, 
or their tendency to wasteful extravagance is effectually 
subdued. 

The Age is revolutionary. The present is an epoch 
in the world's history of transition — a sort of moral 
exodus of the nations — which has lasted now some three 
centuries; and no stability in governments anywhere, 
much less here, can be looked for until the passage from 
the old regime to the new has been completed. 

To a close observer, the social ebullition in this coun- 
try has long been of a threatening character. From the 
birth of our government, its elements have been in an 
uneasy state; and the bosom of society has more than 
once been agitated by the throes of coming convulsions. 
The time has arrived for these inevitable disturbances, 
so long concealed, to manifest their dangerous activity. 
An open rupture is at last reached ; and however it may 
be allayed temporarily, will be again and again renewed 
until the foundations of society are broken up, or the 
principles which now lie at its base are extruded, or so 
modified by the introduction of others that their excesses 
will be entirely counteracted. 

The novelty of this declaration will no doubt astonish 
many, and the announcement be received with general 
incredulity. But let no one jump to conclusions, or con- 
demn without hearing. To convince this people of the 
insufficiency of the democratic principles to serve fur- 



THE REVOLUTIONAEY CHARACTER OF THE AGE. 13 

ther the purposes of social order, will seem like con- 
vincing them of their own incapacity for self-government. 
Such a task would appear, at first view, to be a very 
difficult one; it will be thought an object from which 
the eloquence of the closet must shrink in despair, and 
which prudence would leave to the more powerful argu- 
ments of events. Those arguments are now being em- 
ployed with disastrous efiect ; and however infallible 
may be the logic of the sword, the people would best 
evince their own capacity by removing at once the dis- 
cussion to a more peaceful tribunal ; as long as it remains 
where it is, the weight of evidence is largely against 
them. The force of circumstances, however efficacious 
in the long run, is a terrible remedy for social ills. It 
was not only to prevent the recurrence of those ills, but 
to obviate as well the necessity of employing so drastic 
an agency to remove them, that the democratic prin- 
ciples were substituted at the base of government. So 
far from fulfilling these designs, I expect to prove their 
complicity in the present treason against the peace of 
society, and to show that they have failed of accom- 
plishing all the great ends expected of them. "When, 
in the natural course of events, any doctrine has become 
hostile to the purposes it was destined to serve, it is 
evidently done with; and its end, or the close of its 
activity, is near." 

Institutions, as has so often been said, are nothing 
but opinions carried into practice. All governments 
rest upon sentiments that have become prevalent in a 
given epoch; and as ideas are, by their very nature, 
fluctuating and evanescent, no given form of civilization 
can endure forever: hence the mobility of society, the 



14 THE REVOLUTIONAEY CHARACTER OF THE AGE. 

transformation of systems, and the destruction of na- 
tions. No doubt the notions that prevail for the time 
being, and help to determine the course of civilization, 
have always more or less of truth in them while they 
are current; for when an idea has subjugated any con- 
siderable number of minds, and has lasted so long and 
so well as to carry itself into the social structures of the 
age, it is clear it does so by virtue of the truth, not the 
error, that is in it. Its error generally consists in its 
exclusiveness ; that is, in what it excludes, more than in 
what it contains. No single idea includes all truth; but 
there never was an idea yet that did not think itself the 
whole truth. It is false, therefore, in so far as it assumes 
to be absolute and universal, instead of relative and lim- 
ited. Hence the evils that flow from it ; and these evils 
are unavoidable in the present state of civilization; be- 
cause all speculative ideas, which are the constituents of 
society, are intolerant and prescriptive. No idea will 
endure the presence of another which seems to limit its 
action; and political principles, like religious dogmas, 
are of all others the least patient of fellowship or re- 
straint. When in power, it is not in the nature of things 
that they can practice forbearance and moderation ; and 
their outbreaks are not unfrequently marked by the ruin 
of generations, and sometimes of nations. If, therefore, 
we would know the origin of the social ills that afilict a 
given epoch or nation, we must penetrate to the bottom 
of its society, and seek for them in the antagonisms or 
in the extravagances of the ruling ideas we find there. 
It is precisely in this way we must account to ourselves 
for this war, or we shall not account for it satisfactorily 
at all — because no other method will give us the true 
and last solution of it. 



THE REVOLUTIONARY CHARACTER OF THE AGE. 15 

Guided, then, by this preliminary statement, the first 
thing for us to do, in conducting the present investiga- 
tion, is to interrogate the age we live in, and learn from 
it what are the mother principles that lie at the bottom 
of its society ; what are the political phenomena to which 
they give birth; how and why disturbances grow out of 
them; what element is present in excess; and what in- 
gredient is absent, and therefore needed to correct their 
vicious action. All this is not now difficult of ascertain- 
ment. History has obtained such a prolongation, and 
has accumulated such a mass of facts, which science has 
to some extent already classified, that it is capable of 
affording us all the satisfaction, derivable from induction 
and analogy, we can desire; and these methods, if prop- 
erly employed, cannot fail to yield us such a solution of 
the problem in question as to give us at least a better 
insight into the nature of our difficulties than we had 
before. I shall not scruple, therefore, to appeal to his- 
tory on every occasion where, in my opinion, any aid 
can be derived from its facts, or from the inductions 
which science has already extracted from them. 

The filiation of the diiferent epochs of history has been 
demonstrated by philosophers beyond dispute. Persons 
who have paid some attention to this branch of science 
will readily understand what is meant by the relation- 
ship of the ages; and those who have not, will excuse 
the omission here of any information on that subject; 
time and space will not allow the digression. Let it 
suffice to say, what indeed all well-informed persons 
know well enough, that the old theological regime, which 
lasted throughout the greater part of the middle ages — 
nearly a thousand years — held society benumbed during 



16 THE REVOLUTIONARY CHARACTER OF THE AGE. 

that long period in a theocratic form of government 
almost as pure as the old theocracies of the East. But 
that social condition, though it lasted long, could not 
endure forever; and the advent of the sixteenth cen- 
tury witnessed the beginning of its inevitable decay. 
Its advocates, however, deemed it to be eternal, because 
based, as they thought, on principles that were abso- 
lute ; and they accordingly fought hard and long for its 
perpetuity — a battle which has lasted with little inter- 
ruption to this day. But the dominion of that anti- 
quated despotism, spite of occasional spasms, has passed 
away forever. It displaced a system still more ancient 
than itself ; and now, in its turn, gave way to ideas of 
more modern date. It cannot return upon us. Unable 
to hold its own against the natural progress of intelli- 
gence, it will never again serve as a basis of govern- 
ment. We may as soon expect paganism to reassert 
successfully its claims to social dominion, as that Cathol- 
icism shall once more take possession of society and rule 
over it. Each has had its day, and the ideas of both 
are equally exhausted and effete. 

It was to break up this old system that Protestantism 
was inaugurated; and the principles it employed for that 
purpose were identical with those that are known at this 
day as the dogmas of the democratic creed. Originally 
of a purely religious nature, these dogmas gradually ac- 
quired a mixed form; they were early adopted by meta- 
physics as weapons of great force in the conduct of its 
disquisitions; and finally, having crossed the Atlantic, 
in the zenith of their power, they assumed in this coun- 
try, without losing their influence over metaphysics and 
religion, an exclusively political character, which they 
have borne ever since. 



THE KEVOLUTIONARY CHARACTER OF THE AOE. 17 

There appears to be a great diversity of political ideas 
striving in society, but in reality there are but two orders 
of such ideas, and both are stated in the above para- 
graph. From this statement it will be seen that one of 
these sets of ideas is but the negation of the other, and 
that it is the commingling of the two sets in diiferent 
proportions which creates the apparent multiplicity.* 
One set is derived from the doctrines of the old theo- 
logical and military system of the middle and feudal 
ages, and constitutes the religious state of social science ; 
the other set is derived from the reformation which was 
begun in the sixteenth century for the destruction of the 
old system, and was adopted by metaphysics for its own 
enfranchisement. Issuing from Protestantism, and pass- 
ing through a philosophical form, when this last order 
of ideas came to be applied to social affairs, it consti- 
tuted and still constitutes what may be called the rtieta- 
physical state of politics. From the first of these two 
sets of ideas are derived all notions of order in the polit- 
ical world ; from the second are derived all notions of 
jyrogress; and as men are inclined for conservatism or 
amelioration, they arrange themselves under one or the 
other of the two banners. It is not my purpose to fol- 
low in detail the conflicts of these two forces, or to notice 
the monstrous alliances they have sometimes formed, but 
to come at once to a consideration of the organic capa- 
city of the latter, and see if they are equal to their 
pretensions. 

This investigation I think will discover to us that 
these sentiments, potent as they were in demolishing 

* See Comte's Positive Philosophy. 
3 



18 THE REVOLUTIOXARY CHARACTER OF THE AGE. 

the old theological system of the middle ages, have 
utterly failed to reorganize society upon a permanent 
basis derived from themselves. On the contrary, from 
the moment they entered the arena of politics, they at- 
tempted to suppress every other principle which they 
found already in possession of government; and as the 
latter refused to be thus unceremoniously expelled, the 
antagonisms of the two sets of ideas have kept European 
societies in a state of perpetual anarchy and transforma- 
tion ever since. Where, on the other hand, they arrived 
first at the basis of government, and took possession of 
society, as in this country, they have barred the entrance 
to all other principles, and, being unchecked in their ac- 
tion, have run into such excesses that society can enjoy 
no peace at all for them. 

The new doctrines, in giving rise to nearly all the 
political phenomena of modern times, have given also 
to the politics of the times their character of instability. 
\ They instantly put society in motion, and have kept it 
agoing ever since. In stirring it out of its theological 
slumber of ages, they had no place prepared for its 
repose, but hurried it along in a career of mutations 
that has not ceased to this hour. What else, indeed, 
but endless oscillations could be expected from prin- 
ciples that are essentially revolutionary? Revolution 
was the sole purpose of their inauguration. They were 
invoked expressly to eliminate a worn-out system that 
was no longer able to satisfy the social needs of human- 
ity. To this end they were peculiarly well adapted, 
because they were the negation, the very opposites, the 
speculative antitheses of the exhausted ideas they were 
destined to combat; and they opened up to human ac- 



THE KEVOLUTIONARY CHARACTER X)F THE AGE. 19 

tion a boundless expanse of freedom, and to human 
intelligence an endless sphere of speculation — liberty 
without qualification, discussion without determination. 

This work of expulsion they accomplished with fidelity 
and signal ability. All honor to them for their brave 
defense of human rights ! But true to their mission of 
destruction, they will not understand their incapacity 
for reconstruction. Having battered down the walls of 
an antiquated regime, of a thousand years' standing, 
already tottering with age, they conceit themselves 
capable, single-handed, of rebuilding, in its stead, a 
society that shall combine order with progress and 
security with advancement. By giving the widest 
latitude to human liberty — restricting no principle, 
limiting no idea — asserting all their dogmas to be abso- 
lute and universal — they hope, by means of such a for- 
mula, to secure at the same time systematic regularity 
and a harmonious coherence of all the social elements 
into a recombination that shall establish conservatism 
and amelioration as co-ordinate conditions of modern 
civilization. Now, this is precisely what society wants. 
Both order and progress are indispensable conditions of 
modern civilization; and their co-ordination in the same 
system is the grand social problem and the grand social 
difficulty of the age. The solution of this problem is 
just what these principles cannot accomplish, although 
they pretend to be "the last hope of humanity;" and 
in order to realize this hope, men push them to their 
utmost extremity. Hence the futile efforts that are 
being everywhere made to harmonize incongruities by 
reagents that are themselves eminently disorganizing 
— principles that, however powerful they may be for 
segregation, have no force of cohesion. 



20 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

France, unlike many of her cotemporaries, seems to 
have escaped entirely the treacherous stage of Protest- 
antism, and to have passed at once from the Catholic to 
the revolutionary state ; that is, from the old theologico- 
military system to that social condition in which the 
metaphysical state of politics predominates. A true 
daughter of Mother Church to the last moment, and 
having no quarrel with the Catholic Unity, to destroy 
"which the new doctrines were instituted, she seems 
nevertheless to have illustrated, more thoroughly than 
any other nation, the nature of the democratic princi- 
ples ; and to have done so instantaneously, as if on pur- 
pose to test, by a single trial strain, their capacity alike 
for speed and for bottom, for action and for endurance. 

It was in the French Revolution, which was begun 
about the end of the eighteenth century, that the demo- 
cratic doctrines reached their culmination in Europe, and 
demonstrated their incapacity for social organization, 
when located by themselves at the foundation of govern- 
ment. Like a severe logician, that famous revolution 
drew from the democratic principles a priori^ as it were, 
their remotest, their ultimate consequences : it actually 
exhausted them of all they contained of good or bad, 
and then passed on and abandoned them forever. If, 
therefore, any nation wish to know, without making the 
experiment for itself, what those principles are capable 
of in any of the social relations of life, it has but to in- 
terrogate the history of that epoch of French society to 
have its desires or curiosity satisfied. 



THE FRENCH EEVOLUTION. 21 

The Sans- Culottes were perhaps the very best known 
types of the same class of persons to be anywhere found. 
It was precisely this class, everywhere, that was affran- 
chised by the new political creed, and elevated to be the 
successors of the newly deposed hereditary legislators 
of the world. With the fiery zeal of their nation, and 
the ardor of new-born liberty, the Sans- Culottes seized 
the reins of government in France; and putting the 
democratic principles to their utmost speed, made them 
do at once all they could do. What the Sans- Culottes 
and the democratic doctrines did in France during the 
short period of the Revolution, the same classes and the 
same doctrines will do in other nations sooner or later. 

It is to France, therefore, and to that epoch of her 
history, we must frequently go, in order to discover the 
true tendencies of the fundamental dogmas of our own 
government ; for it is only there they have been already 
run out to their last consequences; and to those conse- 
quences they must inevitably go in this country, some 
time or other, if the same latitude be allowed them here. 
That they do actually eajoy the same latitude here, and 
are rapidly tending to similar results, the present war 
sufficiently attests; and these facts will be made still 
more manifest in the progress of this work. 

Though the French Revolution may be said to have 
been the period of their highest intensification in 
Europe, the democratic dogmas have allowed few Euro- 
pean societies to escape unharmed; all have shared a 
common disorganization, though in different degrees, 
and with various modifications. Nor have they yet en- 
tirely discontinued their activity there ; it is only inter- 
mitted. The nations are still smouldering volcanoes; 

3* 



22 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 

and the fires of revolution may, at any moment, break 
out afresh in them. Beneath the heaving and troubled 
mist which veils the destinies of Europe, there yet lie 
hidden the same disorganizing principles which have so 
often shaken her to the center. Like the religion of an 
epoch, the democratic polity must be metamorphosed, 
must pass through a sort of metempsychosis, and reap- 
pear in a different and higher form before it can cease 
its disturbing influence. It must be absorbed by govern- 
ment, and crystallized, as it were, into institutions, with 
combinations so complex and intimate, and so regulated 
by law and so obedient to order, that its dogmas shall 
lose their character of individuality and appear only as 
the formula of organized order and justice. 

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 

The United States, since it passed through the grand 
crisis of its first revolution, which gave it a national ex- 
istence, has been too much preoccupied with the rapid 
progress of its material and moral grandeur to do more 
than warm in its bosom the disorganizing sentiments 
that were destined at a later day to upheave its society 
by the violence of their excesses. This nation may be 
called the child of the democratic doctrines, for they 
presided at its birth, stood by its cradle, and have been 
mainly active in shaping all the subsequent modifications 
of its political life, until it has become as it were a liv- 
ing embodiment of their spirit. It is the only state of 
modern times whose government is organized exclu- 
sively on the dogmas of that political faith; and its 
origin is of so recent a date that it had no antecedents 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 23 

to limit or to assault them. They alone were in pos- 
session of society here before the Revolution, and have 
retained it ever since. 

The Roman Empire, when it was destroyed, left Eu- 
rope strewed with the seeds or the wrecks of nations. 
Most European societies, therefore, at the present day, 
either grew out of those famous ruins, or were founded 
anterior to them. Their governments, gradually estab- 
lishing themselves cotemporaneously with the rise of 
the theologico-military system of the middle ages, de- 
rived their principles partly at first as a bequest from 
the old Roman civilization; but in the end they be- 
came based mainly on the religious dogmas prevalent 
at that epoch. When, therefore, the new doctrines were 
started for the purpose of demolishing the ancient sys- 
tem, all the social perturbations that followed arose 
from the necessary antagonism of the old and new ideas. 
The old, indignant at their intrusion, not only assaulted 
the new, and strove to exclude them from any share of 
sovereignty ; but, by opposing, limited their action ; and 
thus preserved Europe from the ruin or the despotism 
that might have ensued from the excesses of the latter, 
if they had taken exclusive possession of society there 
as they did here. 

Whatever may be the future course of events in the 
United States, no such combats have taken place here 
yet, because there are no opposing principles in the 
frame of this government; nor was there ever any prior 
organization to be destroyed or attacked. On the sub- 
ject of democracy, the people of this country have hith- 
erto been a unit : the popular mind is as completely sub- 
jugated to its dogmas as if there were no other princi- 



24 THE REVOLUTIONARY CHARACTER OF THE AGE. 

pies in the world ; and in the whole structure of this 
political organization there is not any force sufficient 
to limit the absolute tendencies of those dogmas; but 
they have taken entire possession of the social system, 
as of the popular mind, and reign there alone. 

In European societies, on the contrary, there are 
theoretical opinions, monarchical opinions, aristocratic 
opinions, democratic opinions: these all cross and jos- 
tle, struggle, become interwoven, limit and modify each 
other. The inability of the various principles to ex- 
terminate one another has at last compelled each to 
endure the others, and to live in common. Each con- 
sents to have only that part of government which falls 
to its share ; and to allow no encroachments or tyranny 
from the others.* 

Thus, while the variety of elements of European 
civilization, which limit without destroying each other, 
has produced such liberty and order as exist there, the 
predominance of one principle here must produce des- 
potism or dissolution. We find the tyrannies and rapid 
decay of all the ancient civilizations springing from pre- 
cisely the same source. In India, all over Western 
Asia, in Egypt, where only one principle of civilization 
prevailed, there society was dominated by one exclusive 
power, which would bear with no other. The worst 
tyrannies with which history abounds are to be found 
in those countries. But there society endured; sim- 
plicity produced monotony; the country was not de- 
stroyed ; but there was no progression ; society remained 
torpid and inactive. In Greece, on the contrary, where, 
in some of the States, a democracy very similar to our 

* See Guizofs History of (yivilizatiou in Europe. 



THE REVOLUTIONARY CHARACTER OF THE AGE. 25 

own prevailed, there "the unity of the social principle 
led to a development of wonderful rapidity; no other 
people ever ran so brilliant a career in so short a time. 
But Greece had hardly become glorious, before she ap- 
peared worn out: her decline, if not so rapid as her 
rise, was strangely sudden. It seems as if the principle 
which called Greek civilization into life was exhausted. 
No other came to invigorate it or supply its place." 
The reader cannot help but observe the wonderful simi- 
larity between the phenomena of the ancient Greek 
civilization and our own. The same species of tyranny 
is to be found in both countries; the same rapid rise; 
and, so far as present appearances go, the same sudden 
decline. The parallel is complete in every particular; 
a turbulent democracy ; the proscription of every prin- 
ciple of a contrary tendency; the deleterious influence 
of a set of pestilent demagogues; and apparently the 
same melancholy end. 

The perturbations which are now distracting this 
society, and which are destined to rend it to pieces, 
have arisen, not from the conflicts of opposing princi- 
ples, as in modern Europe, but from the dissolving tend- 
encies of the democratic polity, as in ancient Greece. 
When, hereafter, other principles shall demand admis- 
sion in the structure of government, a difierent order of 
conflicts will occur, because the new principles will not 
be allowed to take their places without opposition. The 
doctrines of the democratic creed, like the religious ideas 
of the theological epoch, are capable of yielding earnest 
convictions; they have already taken a deep hold of the 
popular heart in this country: hence the ruinous lengths 
to which they will be carried, the tenacity with which 



26 THE DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES. 

they will be adhered to, and the stubborn resistance they 
will offer to the introduction of other sentiments which 
threaten to contradict their absolute sovereignty. 

But it is time we examine the democratic doctrines 
themselves seriatim^ notice their application to the facts 
of our past history, follow their tendencies into the 
future, and see if they justify the character here given 
of them. 



II. The Democratic Principles. 

Regarding the democratic polity, then, in a more 
special view, we shall discover in it three fundamental 
dogmas, which have been mainly instrumental in pro- 
ducing some of the most important social phenomena of 
modern times. They are as follows: Liberty or Con- 
science; Popular Sovereignty; Equality. These 
three principles are so blended and so directly related 
— the two latter resulting immediately from the first — 
that it is difiicult to treat them separately without tau- 
tology. Taken together, they constitute the trinity of 
the democratic faith — a tri-unity which, whether con- 
sidered in its unity or tri-plicity, has revolutionized the 
moral world, has been the main element of all social dis- 
turbances in this country, and, as I expect to show, is 
directly or indirectly responsible for this war. Nor is 
it to the past alone, or to the present, that the ill effects 
of the principles under review are confined. They have 
by no means exhausted their capacity for mischief. The 
present war, huge evil as it is, is not the only form, nor 
perhaps the worst, under which they are likely to man- 



THE DExMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES. 27 

ifest their vicious tendencies. They are yet destined, 
through many long years of the future, to become the 
direful spring of woes unnumbered to this hapless na- 
tion, unless a provident forethought arrest at once their 
mad career. 

It does not enter into the plan of this work to show 
how necessary or unavoidable was the exclusive substi- 
tution of the democratic principles at the basis of this 
government, at the time it was constructed. The cir- 
cumstances peculiar to that epoch of history rendered 
inevitable their adoption, unattended, at least for a 
period, by other ideas that might hinder their action. 
And even now, as a prime element of modern society, 
they are indispensable. A legitimate product of the 
social evolution, their presence in all the social systems 
of the age is peremptorily demanded by the nature of 
modern civilization. A conspicuous element of human 
nature, they were obliged, at the proper time, to reap- 
pear in human civilization. A complete development 
of the latter would be impossible without them. Civil- 
ization can produce nothing but what pre-exists in hu- 
manity, and it is bound to reproduce whatever exists 
there, and to reproduce them in the same relations they 
are found there. Human nature is not a simple sub- 
stance; it is complex, concrete, a compound, made up 
of many elements compacted together, and as such must 
project itself in its civilization. By the laws of growth, 
in the moral as in the physical world, these elements 
are not all brought forward together; but are developed 
gradually, one by one, and in different relations. Ob- 
structions are always attended by shocks more or less 
violent: if insurmountable, by dissolution. The social 



28 THE DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES. 

system that cannot duplicate its original, is doomed to 
quick decay, as in Greece; or to a torpidity little bet- 
ter than death, as in the societies of the East. 

The lapse of time and the progress of events here 
have so far altered the condition of things, that the 
democratic principles can no longer be trusted alone at 
the helm of state, without those checks and guards, 
those complements, those aids and assistants, which 
have always been found necessary defenses against 
despotism or anarchy. Society here has advanced with 
prodigious strides; the growth of the nation and its 
civilization has been more expeditious than ever before 
heard of in the history of empires, Greece not ex- 
cepted; all the external conditions of the country have 
changed; the population has doubled itself ten times; 
the territory has been nearly trebled ; and all the wants 
of a very advanced and complex civilization are press- 
ing their satisfaction, while the government has re- 
mained stationary in the simple form of its original con- 
struction. The habiliments so well adapted to the size 
of the nation at its birth, are not equally well fitted to 
its present gigantic proportions. Its giant limbs are, 
in many places, bursting through the seams of its early 
integuments. The time is come for it to put off the 
small-clothes of infancy, and assume the virilis toga of 
manhood. This is the natural course of things. In 
making this change of garments, society need expe- 
rience no more difficulty than other things ; particularly 
in this country, the boast of whose social system is the 
''^facility of changing the structure of government, 
whenever and as often as the society shall think there 
is anything in it to amend." 



THE DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES. 29 

The rational and deliberative method of the adoption 
of our political system, occurring as it did at a period 
when the human mind was much less informed of the 
nature of social laws than it now is, would seem to 
augur well for the prospect of assembling another con- 
vention, similar to that which formed the old Federal 
Constitution, to take into consideration the modifica- 
tions which the changes of time and circumstances have 
made it necessary to introduce in the structure of gov- 
ernment. The people of this country have been so 
long familiarized, by previous habits, with the uses of 
such conventions, and so many modifications have been 
introduced by them into the constitutions of the several 
States, with little or no popular commotions, that no 
insurmountable difficulties need be anticipated in call- 
ing together another such convention, now in the very 
crisis of the nation's fate, in order to snatch it from the 
jaws of ruin. 

With a view, therefore, to the opening of this discus- 
sion, and to a preparation of the public mind for the 
task before it, I shall confine myself, not to eulogies 
of the democratic principles, of which they have had 
enough, but to a disclosure of their unfitness, in their 
present absolute character, to be alone the conservators 
of a great society like this. If, then, I bring accusa- 
tions against the democratic principles, considered in 
this light, it is without anger I do so ; for it was doubt- 
less necessary that, under the circumstances, they should 
have been first at the basis of government here, and, 
for a period, to have been there alone. The time needed 
for their solitary development, I can well believe, could 
not have been abbreviated, nor the damage they have 

4 



30 LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. 

wrought avoided. It is not their fault if, like all human 
dogmas when spoilt by indulgence, they are capricious 
and extravagant, as well as intolerant and proscriptive. 
This war will not have been too dearly bought, if it be 
the occasion of correcting these defects, and of rectify- 
ing the error in the form of government which brought it 
about. 

LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. 

The necessity of a rapid synthesis^ in the treatment 
of my subject, would seem almost to preclude the pos- 
sibility of analysis, without too much difFuseness. The 
latter method, however, alone supplies the requisite 
amount of clearness. I shall, therefore, proceed to 
decompose the democratic polity into its several parts, 
and treat each part separately, even though it be at the 
risk of frequent repetitions and consequent tedium. 

Of the three dogmas, included in the democratic 
trinity, mentioned above, the first is much the most im- 
portant, both on account of its intrinsic value, and 
because it was the first great weapon so successfully 
employed by Protestantism against its powerful adver- 
sary, who claimed to be the keeper of all consciences, and 
allowed no freedom of opinion on the most vital con- 
cerns of this world or the world to come. It also set 
free the other two, made their acknowledgment a neces- 
sary consequence of its own, and imparts to them its 
own virtues and vices. 

It is a singular fact, if true, — and M. Guizot seems to 
have demonstrated its truth, satisfactorily at least to his 
own mind, — that the Catholic Church itself was the first 



LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. 31 

to liberate this principle at a very early period of its 
history. It was about the beginning of the fifth century 
that the Church was obliged to declare a separation of 
temporal and spiritual authority, in order to defend itself 
against the brute force of the times. This separation is, 
in the opinion of M. Guizot, the only true source of lib- 
erty of conscience. The separation, according to him, 
was based upon no other principle than that which serves 
as the groundwork of the strictest and most extensive 
liberty of conscience. The separation of temporal and 
spiritual power, he says, rests solely upon the idea that 
physical force has no authority over the mind, over con- 
victions, over truth; so that, however paradoxical it may 
seem, that very principle of liberty of conscience for 
which Europe has so long struggled against the whole 
power of the Church, for which it has suffered so much, 
which has only so lately prevailed, and that against the 
will of the clergy — that very principle was acted upon, 
under the name of a separation of the temporal and 
spiritual power, in the infancy of European civilization. 
It was, moreover, the Christian Church itself that intro- 
duced and maintained it, when driven to assert it by the 
circumstances in which it was placed, as a means of 
defense against barbarism. 

In all this, far-fetched as it is, M. Guizot would seem 
to be the mere apologist of the Church; or perhaps he 
would thereby lay claim to a degree of penetration or 
philosophical acumen in his historical researches which 
no other author ever possessed, for it is the first time 
liberty of conscience was ever heard of as a constituent 
element of society at that early epoch. In claiming 
liberty of conscience as a permanent benefit conferred 



32 LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. 

by Catholicism on European society as early as the fifth 
century, M. Guizot convicts that arbitrary power of an 
inconsistency not a whit better than the tyranny which 
its continuous suppression would imply; for it is very 
certain that, when the barbarians were conquered, and 
all the other elements of society were reduced to a state 
of subordination to the authority of the Catholic Church, 
that despotic regime closed the mind of society against 
the principle of liberty of conscience, and kept it effect- 
ually so closed for the long period of nearly a thousand 
years. When, subsequently, the human intelligence re- 
volted against this despotism, and claimed liberty of 
conscience as an indefeasible right, the Catholic unity 
fought against it with all its might. This fact, however, 
does not convict M. Guizot of error, for it is not a soli- 
tary instance of inconsistency on the part of the Catholic 
Church. In Protestant countries, even at this day, it 
clamors as loudly as any for liberty of conscience ; while 
in Catholic nations the same right is systematically pro- 
scribed. Thus we see the Catholics in England, and yet 
more in Ireland, asserting the claim of liberty of con- 
science, while still calling loudly for the repression of 
Protestantism in France, Austria, and elsewhere.* 

The error of M. Guizot lies more on the surface of 
his statement, which I cannot stop here to point out. 
To me, the opinion — for it is nothing but an opinion — 
seems to be more a piece of sportive fancy than a matter 
of fact, an unauthorized inference drawn from an his- 
torical incident, a forced construction of an event which 
did actually take place. It is very clear the Catholic 

* See Comte's Positive Philosophy. 



LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. 33 

Churcli never thought of liberating anybody's con- 
science; it only thought of its own interests, and how 
it might defraud or coerce the barbarian. Liberty of 
conscience was a thing then unknown in the world. 
Society at that period would have known as little what 
to do with liberty of conscience as the human mind at 
this day would know how to do without it. It was due 
to M. Guizot's high standing as an author, and to the 
prominent place this opinion occupies in the ablest of 
his w^orks, to record it here, which I do simply for what 
it is worth. 

M. Comte, in my opinion, was much nearer the truth 
in the assertion that, when the dogma of liberty of con- 
science was proclaimed, for the first time, in the sixteenth 
century, as a revolutionary principle, to release the na- 
tions from the tyranny of the theological regime^ the 
impulse of the emancipation was irresistible; and the 
revolutionary contagion was, in this one respect, uni- 
versal. It attracted to its standard all orders of minds, 
from the highest to the lowest, and continues to this day 
a chief characteristic of the mind of society. 

From having at first a purely religious application, 
liberty of conscience soon passed into a favorite political 
dogma; and in this country it has established itself, with 
its two co-ordinate principles, exclusively at the founda- 
tion of our social system. Its domination of society here 
is supreme, and the popular mind, in all its operations, 
acknowledges no other stimulant. Nor is there a single 
contradictory principle admitted in the frame of our 
society sufTicient to limit its authority. The wildest 
vagaries, and the greatest possible divergencies of opin- 
ions, must be the first necessary consequences of this 

4* 



34 LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. 

unrestricted sovereignty of a single, unopposed prin- 
ciple ; and, in the long run, a despotism, not inferior to 
that of the Catholic unity in the middle ages, will result 
from the democratic unity in this country. Between 
anarchy and despotism there is perhaps little choice; 
and the perpetual vibration of society between those 
two extremes, with unsatisfactory revolutions to fill up 
the intervals, presents to us a future fraught with hor- 
rors enough to appal the stoutest heart. Such, how- 
ever, under the patronage of this lawless dogma, must 
be our alternatives, unless rescued by an intelligent 
patriotism and a wise provision. 

It is a law of physics that the tendency of every force 
is to excess. In natural systems, this tendency is coun- 
teracted by the limitation of one force by another, and 
a due equipoise is obtained by the development from the 
forces themselves of a regular system of checks and bal- 
ances. In social arrangements, which are always more 
or less artificial, this prudent limitation of principles is 
not always observed. The metaphysical habitude of the 
general mind, so prevalent in this age, favors absolute 
views, to the almost utter exclusion of relative notions. 
This dangerous mental habit, not yet counteracted by 
the advance of positive science, was first introduced into 
Europe, along with Protestantism, in the sixteenth cen- 
tury. It is the legitimate successor of the theological 
method of disquisition, and was engendered partly by 
the ignorance of natural laws, but mainly by the freedom 
of inquiry which followed the introduction of liberty of 
conscience. From Europe it was transported, in the 
plenitude of its power, to this country; and from being 
an exotic, it soon became naturalized, and took such 



LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. 35 

deep root in the popular mind that it has ever since 
rather improved than declined. Thus nationahzed, it 
is a powerful ally of liberty of conscience, and by its 
method of discussion renders that licentious dogma more 
dangerous than it would otherwise be. In the discussion 
of nearly all questions, therefore, under favor of this 
metaphysical habit, the necessary stimulant of the mind, 
as in theology, is the infinite; for every debater pro- 
fesses himself to be a philosopher, that is, a metaphy- 
sician, who thinks nothing of penetrating to the essence 
of things and to ultimate causes, and seeks habitually 
for the most latitudinous construction of ideas. Under 
such conditions, a principle, to be good for anything at 
all, must be able to bear every strain that can be put 
on it, and be run out to endless consequences, without 
limitations from any quarter. 

A fit illustration of this tendency is afforded by the 
revisions which the constitutions of most of the States 
have undergone within the last quarter of a century. 
Many of the States had constitutions in which it was 
thought the democratic polity was too much restricted; 
it was still further to democratize or popularize them 
that conventions were assembled for their revision. In 
some States this had to be done more than once within 
a very short period before democracy could be satisfied. 
It was argued by the metaphysical politicians that de- 
mocracy, if good for anything, must be good for every- 
thing pertaining to government ; that if the people be 
capable of electing one set of ofiicers, they were equally 
capable of electing all; of sitting in judgment on all 
political questions; and of solving every social problem 
that could occupy the attention of the human mind. 



36 LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. 

This argument exactly suited the people; it accordingly 
prevailed; and constitutions were formed, in which the 
democratic principles were left, like eternity, without 
limits. Democracy now culminated; every branch of 
government was in its hands — the legislative, the execu- 
tive, the judiciary; its unity was complete; its domina- 
tion of society absolute. 

By this same metaphysical habit of mind, so dan- 
gerous when used by incompetent persons, a boundless 
application is given to the principle of liberty of con- 
science. It is made to carry itself into all the practical 
details of social life, and to cover a multitude of human 
rights. Some of the most important of these rights 
are — the right of free inquiry, the right of every man 
to his own opinions, the right of speech, and of every 
other mode of expression by which opinions can be com- 
municated. Now, if it were true, as democracy claims, 
that all men are equal, — equally wise, equally just, 
equally virtuous and good, and those qualities were 
absolute and unlimited in all men, — in that case there 
would be no necessity for government or laws; every 
man would be a law unto himself, and order and prog- 
ress would prevail spontaneously. That is the sole con- 
dition under which those rights can be conceded ; and I 
leave it to every one to determine for himself if that 
condition exists. 

That no one may be shocked at this novel apprecia- 
tion of the dogma of free inquiry, or liberty of conscience, 
it will be necessary to examine more closely some of the 
consequences likely to flow from the immense aggran- 
dizement claimed for it, and point out its legitimate 
limits ; for, be it remembered, there is nothing in this 



LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. 37 

world that i& absolute and unlimited : all things sublu- 
nary are relative merely, all have their qualifications, 
their metes and bounds; and it is the duty of govern- 
ment to define these, and establish them, in all matters 
of social concernment. 

This formula, then, regarded as absolute, — for it is 
really in that light it is considered in this country, — 
abolishes everything like intellectual regulations^ and 
sets up the personal reason as supreme authority in all 
notions that can engage the attention of the human 
understanding. There are, accordingly, in this country 
no less than thirty millions of supreme authorities in all 
the moral, intellectual, and social concerns of life. Each 
of these arbiters decides from the tribunal of his own 
conscience; and from this authority there is no appeal. 
Each is entitled to the broadest liberty of inquiry and 
to endless discussion; and his opinions, when formed, 
however wrong they may be, are sacred, for there is for 
him no other standard of right but his own conscience. 
Here, then, is reached a point of intellectual dissipation 
which upsets all fixed principles of action, where unity 
of thought is in danger of being lost in a ruinous divers- 
ity* and which renders government next to an impossi- 
bility. 

I have already said that the natural tendency of every- 
thing is to excess, and it is in their extremities that all 
things find their ruin. To this vicious tendency the 
human mind is peculiarly exposed; and there are few 
opinions which, if unrestricted, do not proceed to the 
full length of their tethers. In the exercise of its func- 
tions, the human intelligence is apt, like everything else, 
when a momentum is given to it in a certain direction, 



38 LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. 

to rush beyond the safe limits of that middle term where 
a due equilibrium resides, and to go to the verge of disso- 
lution. As society follows the lead of intelligence, and 
symbolizes its speculations, this tendency of the human 
mind constitutes the greatest danger to which the former 
is exposed, for it represents a state of dissipation little 
short of absolute anarchy. Inasmuch, therefore, as 
every government is based on sentiments w'hich it is 
bound to reproduce in its phenomena, the government 
of this country is of course no exception to that rule. 
On the contrary, as a perfect reflex of the democratic 
polity and a faithful exponent of all its dogmas, the 
government of the United States, in the administration 
of public affairs, has frequently run into the excesses 
authorized by the sentiments contained in the dogma of 
liberty of conscience. The examples thus set in high 
quarters have not wanted followers in lower spheres : 
they have descended to the administrations of State 
governments, to the most minute ramifications of gen- 
eral and special politics, and to private practices as 
well. I shall mention but two or three of these in- 
stances, as samples of all. These examples I shall 
take from the most exalted sources — sources which, on 
account of their altitude, not only entitle them to atten- 
tion, but render them peculiarly noticeable and exposed 
to observation. 

The first of these illustrations which I shall mention 
is drawn from the administration of General Jackson, in 
1832, when democracy culminated in the Federal gov- 
ernment. That distinguished personage, in his cele- 
brated Message vetoing the bill for the recharter of the 
United States Bank, used the following language: — 



LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. 39 

"Each public officer who takes an oath to support the 
constitution, swears that he will support it as he under- 
stands it, and not as it is understood by others." This 
sentiment influenced his vetoes of several important 
bills, on constitutional grounds as he understood them. 
The consequence was that many of his vetoes and other 
official acts were in direct opposition to precedents, to 
long-established usages, to the practices of all anterior 
administrations, extending through more than forty 
years; they were also opposed to decisions of the high- 
est judicial tribunal of the land, appointed exclusively 
to sit in judgment on constitutional questions. 

It cannot but be seen, at first view, that a general 
adoption of this sentiment as a universally received 
political maxim of binding force, would dissolve gov- 
ernment and render social order wholly impracticable. 
Nevertheless, the sentiment was in strict accordance 
with the spirit c^ the age and government, of which 
General Jackson, as its organ, was a faithful exponent. 
There were, however, even at that epoch, minds suffi- 
ciently exempt from the lawless domination of that 
spirit to characterize such a sentiment as it deserved. 
In an able speech, delivered in the Senate of the United 
States, Mr. Webster unmasked the insidious danger that 
lurked beneath its specious exterior. Commenting on 
this text, he very justly remarked that it would raise 
every man's private opinions into a standard for his 
own conduct; and of course there can be no govern- 
ment where every man is to judge for himself of his 
own rights and his own obligations. Where every one 
is his own arbiter, force, and not law, is the governing 
power. lie who may judge for himself, and decide for 



40 LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. 

himself, must execute his own decisions; and this is the 
law of force. If he, who is appointed to execute the 
laws, has the right to interpret them for himself, then 
also has he, whose only duty is to obey the laws, the 
same right. And where all men enjoy this privilege, 
and each is entitled to obey the laws only according to 
his own understanding of them, there is an end to all 
constitutional and legal restrictions. Such a sentiment 
abolishes the judiciary, and abrogates the obligations of 
the whole criminal code. Culprits would have to be 
tried, not according to the law, but according as they 
profess to understand it. Arguments would have to be 
addressed, and appeals made, not to a bench of judges or 
a box of jurors, but to the accused themselves, in order 
to enlighten them how they ought to understand the law. 
The next example which I shall cite is taken, not like 
the other from the official acts of the Federal adminis- 
tration, but from the legislative acts of one of the State 
governments. Both are so eminent in their origin, and 
so notorious as events of history, that they are in no 
danger of being perverted or misrepresented without 
detection. About the same time, then, that General 
Jackson, as Chief Magistrate of the United States, 
uttered the above sentiment, that is, in 1832, the Legis- 
lature of South Carolina so far followed the example 
and adopted the maxim of the "Old Chief" as to nul- 
lify a law of Congress, on the ground, they said, that 
it was not warranted by the Federal Constitution as 
they understood that instrument. Such, in the last 
analysis, was the true origin of the famous South Caro- 
lina Ordinance of Nullification, which came so near 
dissolving the Union more than thirty years ago; al- 



LIBERTY OF COXSCIENCE. 41 

though Mr. Calhoun professed to derive his precedent, 
not from General Jackson or the Federal administra- 
tion, but from Mr. Jefferson, who, in the Virginia and 
Kentucky Resolutions of 1798-9, uttered, in effect, pre- 
cisely the same sentiment as that quoted from General 
Jackson's Veto Message. This act of South Carolina, 
perpetrated avoivedly on the ground that each State 
possessed the right of interpreting the constitution and 
laws of Congress as she understood them, and of nullify- 
ing the latter whenever, in her opinion, they conflicted 
with the former, constituted the most perilous moment, 
prior to 1861, which ever occurred in the history of this 
government. That the danger was fully understood, 
even at that early period; that it was even then at- 
tributed to the proper source ; that the doctrine of 
General Jackson's Veto Message and the Nullification 
Ordinance of South Carolina were directly related and 
owned a common origin; and that I draw no unauthor- 
ized inference from either, are all made clearly manifest 
by speeches delivered at that time in the Senate Cham- 
ber of the United States by the most distinguished 
orators and statesmen of that day. In proof of this 
I shall make a few extracts from a speech of Mr. Web- 
ster, who, with the prescience of true greatness, looking 
far ahead of ordinary minds, exclaimed : ''Are we not 
threatened with dissolution of the Union ? Are we not 
told that the laws of the government shall be openly 
and directly resisted ? At this moment, so full of peril 
to the State, the Chief Magistrate puts forth opinions as 
truly subversive of all government as the wildest theories 
of nullification. There is not an individual in its ranks, 
capable of putting two ideas together, who, if you grant 

5 



42 LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. 

him the principles of the Veto Message, cannot defend 
all that nullification has ever threatened." "The Pres- 
ident of the United States is of opinion, that an indi- 
vidual, called on to execute a law, may himself judge of 
its constitutional validity. Does nullification teach any- 
thing more revolutionary than that? The President is 
of opinion, that every officer is bound to support the 
constitution only according to what ought to be, in his 
private opinion, its construction. Has nullification, in its 
wildest flight, reached to an extravagance beyond that? 
The President is of opinion, that judicial interpretations 
of the constitution and laws do not bind the consciences, 
and ought not to bind the conduct, of men. Is nullifi- 
cation at all more disorganizing than that?" ''Nulli- 
fication, it is in vain to deny it, is dissolution ; it is dis- 
memberment; it is the breaking up of the Union," etc. 

Such, then, were the opinions, such the apprehensions, 
of the most practical statesman of his day, as to the 
dangerous direction of public affairs, and as to the safety 
of the Union itself, under the patronage of this licen- 
tious doctrine. Without, perhaps, penetrating to its 
last cause, to the true source of its origin, Mr. Webster 
yet saw, or rather felt^ in a moment of prophetic frenzy 
peculiar to highly endowed minds, that a sentiment so 
disorganizing as that uttered by the then head of the 
Federal government, and practically illustrated by one 
of the States, must ultimately terminate in brute force 
and dissolution of the Union. 

At that early period, abolitionism, as a party cry, was 
unheard of; the negro question, as a disturbing ele- 
ment of society, occasioned no uneasiness; the abolition 
of slavery was a private sentiment only, which had not 



LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. 43 

yet passed beyond the precincts of a few individual 
minds; and no one, perhaps, dreamed that it ever 
would become the rallying note of a great party des- 
tined to the bad ends which it has apparently con- 
tributed so much to accomplish. All those secondary 
causes, which are now convulsing the nation, were then 
in abeyance, or, at most, merely rudimental ; and yet a 
social cataclysm exactly analogous to the present was 
already imminent, and was averted mainly because 
society was not then fully ripe for the catastrophe. 
Nevertheless, it is plain that the two sets of causes, 
those of 1832 and those of 1861, both secondary in 
their natures, and however different they may be in ap- 
pearance, sprang from the same source ; they were the 
offsprings of the same parent; and, possessing the same 
disorganizing qualities, tended of course to similar con- 
sequences. This common origin is not difficult to dis- 
cover : it is to be found in the dogma of liberty of con- 
science, the fruitful parent of so much licentiousness both 
of theory and practice. 

One other illustration will serve to render this fact still 
more clear, and, at the same time, to mark the progress 
which the dogma of liberty of conscience and its co-ordi- 
nate rights had made in a comparatively short time in 
demoralizing the mind of society and preparing it for 
final dissolution. 

This, then, brings us to the third and last example 
which I shall cite. The extraordinary sentiment, quoted 
above, emanating from the then Chief Magistrate of the 
nation, and appearing in an important state paper as 
a fundamental maxim of his administration, and sub- 
sequently reduced to practice by a State government, 



44 LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. 

was timid and hesitating. It did not go the length of 
denying the paramount authority of constitutions and 
laws: it acknowledged their supremacy, but dissipated 
their binding force by referring their construction to 
individual understandings. At a later period, we hear 
accredited to another high public functionary, then a 
United States Senator, now a cabinet minister, a senti- 
ment of similar import, but which so far transcends the 
other as to set aside altogether legislative enactments in 
favor of a "higher law," which is paramount to all con- 
stitutions, and which, when the two come in conflict, is 
alone binding on the consciences and conduct of men. 
What this "higher law" is, whence it emanates, from 
whom it derives its authority, how it is to be enforced, 
or what are its guarantees, we are not exactly told. It 
appears to be some unwritten law of God or of Nature, 
which every one must interpret for himself. Or rather, 
it seems to be a dictate of every man's own conscience, 
which he is under a moral obligation to obey in prefer- 
ence to any municipal law whatever. Or, in short, it is 
difficult to say what it is, or how many there are; for 
the phrase "higher law'' appears to be a noun of mul- 
titude, a sort of generic term, which covers an indefi- 
nite number of laws. This sentiment, vague as it is, 
made such progress as to obtain currency with a party 
which became a prime element in dissolving the Union, 
and which is even now controlling the government of 
the nation, and conducting the war in a manner which 
does not pretend to be constitutional, but in open defi- 
ance of the constitution. 

To superficial observers, these "sayings and doings" 
may vrell seem trivial, and attract little attention as 



LIBERTY OF CONSCIEXCE. 45 

signs of the times. Standing alone as isolated senti- 
ments of the individuals uttering them, they were, per- 
haps, thought to be intellectual extravagances, exuber- 
ances of mind, which were never intended to pass 
beyond their verbal expression: and few persons are 
able to connect their acts as links in the great chain of 
events, and deduce from them the direction of history. 
Even nullification, significant as was that great event, 
yielded no lesson on this subject. It was thought to be 
a mere ebullition of the moment, a temporary disturb- 
ance, having no connection with the past and no refer- 
ence to the future. Its true genealogy seems never to 
have been suspected. It was deemed to have been called 
suddenly into being by the Tariff Act of 1828, and as 
suddenly allayed forever by the Compromise Bill of 
Mr. Clay. But all these sentiments and acts, these 
"sayings and doings," trivial and isolated as they may 
seem at first sight, are legitimate derivatives of liberty 
of conscience and its co-ordinate rights. These lawless 
rights, so boundless in their pretensions, are genuine 
revolutionary principles. They have already demolished 
an ancient system cemented by the prescription of a 
thousand years. The theological regime of the middle 
ages dissolved at their touch. The military system of 
feudalism fell before them. In pure wantonness, they 
would seem to have constructed a sort of ''card-house" 
government here, for apparently no other purpose than 
to gratify their disorganizing instincts by demolishing 
it at a single blow as soon as erected. If they succeed in 
reconstructing it, it will be only to level it once more to 
the ground with a breath as before. They have so long 
controlled public and private opinions in this country, 

5* 



46 LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. 

that they have at last passed into the commonest truisms, 
the merest matters of course, which it is considered a 
species of insanity to question. Their very common- 
ness, their nearness to us, and the close intimacy they 
have formed with our every-day thoughts, render them 
in a manner invisible. Their destructive agency is the 
last thing to be suspected. In seeking for the cause of 
our troubles, we overlook them altogether. We accuse 
first one thing and then another. Symptoms are mis- 
taken for diseases; occasions for causes. The sad ex- 
perience we are now undergoing ought to be a convinc- 
ing and long-remembered preacher on this subject, and 
teach us to look nearer home for the source of our mis- 
fortunes; to look for it in our own hearts, in our own 
minds, in the bosom of our social system, for it is only 
there we can come at the real root of the evil. 

Everything has a reason for existing — its necessity, 
its utility, its law. Some such latitude of discussion as 
is authorized by this vagabond liberty of conscience, was 
needed to combat successfully the crushing weight of 
authority exercised by the religious government of the 
Catholic Church in its long day of power; and liberty 
of conscience correctly represents the state of unbounded 
freedom in which the human mind was left by the decay 
of the old theological regime. It has also not been 
without its utility in enabling philosophers to explore 
the entire field of thought ; and, by admitting the right 
of all to a similar research, encouraged the discussion 
which must precede and effect the discovery of princi- 
ples which will solicit a new social organization that 
shall combine order with progress ; and which, while it 
neglects not the interests of society, neither will it slight 



LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. 47 

the development of the individual. Herein alone con- 
sist the necessity and utility of this release of the hu- 
man mind from the old authority. Liberty of conscience 
correctly represents that enfranchisement. Its business 
was to tear down the old system, to clear the ground 
and prepare the materials for a reorganization of society. 
For this purpose it was necessary that it should exer- 
cise all the prerogatives of an absolute principle ; other- 
wise it is clear it never could have possessed the requisite 
amount of energy to accomplish its revolutionary mission. 
With the fulfillment of that object, its dangerous 
activity ought to have ceased. The very freedom of 
inquiry which it authorized ought long ago to have de- 
tected the imposition it so successfully practiced in pass- 
ing itself off for an absolute principle; and with the 
detection and exposure of this imposition, its further 
interference with the reorganization of society would 
have been confined within salutary bounds. But such 
was very far from being the case. Once put in motion 
it seems not to know where to stop. Released from the 
trammels of ages, and started on a mission of the high- 
est importance to the interests of humanity, its first 
successes have only magnified its zeal; and, with the 
accomplishment of its original purpose, instead of dimin- 
ishing its efforts, it seems rather to have gained strength 
ever since. Its activity no longer absorbed by the de- 
molition of the old political order, it now aims at an 
entire reorganization of society on a basis of its own. 
But the right of free inquiry is of so dissolving a nature 
that it never can become an organic principle. On the 
contrary, every attempt it makes to reconstruct a per- 
manent system of government must prove disastrous to 



48 LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. 

the age or nation that allows the experiment. Witness 
the example of Mexico, of the Central and South Amer- 
ican Republics, the Italian Republics, the short episode 
of the French Republic. Witness, finally, and above 
all, the brilliant illustration which this country is just 
now adding to other examples of failure of the demo- 
cratic experiment. 

Such a principle as the right of unbounded liberty of 
conscience, and the collateral rights that flow from it, 
can never produce anything else but simple individual 
thoughts. The thoughts thus produced must be as 
diverse as the characters of the thinkers, with no com- 
mon center of attraction stronger than the mere tvills 
of those who entertain them. Possessing, then, no prin- 
ciple of convergence other than the caprices of countless 
individual minds, accustomed, in the respect of their 
opinions, to the wildest license, these vagrant sentiments 
must owe to the voluntary assent of numbers whatever 
supremacy they can ever possess. And such, indeed, is 
the only method of procuring the famous ''majority''' 
so much vaunted in this country. The decisions which 
issue from this judgment-seat of the populace really 
establish nothing at all ; for the questions decided by 
it remain still open, and the discussion may be renewed 
again and again, ad infinitum^ without any definitive 
settlement ever being arrived at. Where the right of 
inquiry is never closed, and the whims of licentious 
minds is the only law employed to solicit a unanimity 
of sentiments, the majority is liable to shift from side 
to side, and to vary its decisions so often, that distrac- 
tion, and not settlement, will be the consequence. If 
anything was wanting to realize, in its worst form, a 



LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. 49 

diversity of so dissolving a nature, and to render it in 
practice as ruinous as it appears in theory, this end was 
obtained in t\\Q frequency of elections established by law 
in this country, and the admission as voters of all male 
white persons above the age of twenty-one years. 

In point of fact, the unbounded right of free inquiry 
imposes the necessity of never deciding. From this state 
of prolonged indecision ensues an irritation of the public 
mind, which in time becomes intolerable. Our whole 
government is a practical illustration of this melancholy 
fact. From its commencement to the present moment, 
not a single question of importance, although so often 
referred to the arbitration of the majority^ and debated 
ad nauseam, has ever been determined. All the Presi- 
dential elections of the last thirty years have vibrated, 
like a pendulum, from one side to the other of these 
great questions. Take, for example, the elections of 
Messrs. Adams, Jackson, Van Buren, Harrison, Polk, 
Taylor, Pierce. In each of these elections the main 
questions to be decided were precisely the same; and 
each decision was a direct reversal of its predecessor. 
After seven verdicts of the majority, each, with a soli- 
tary exception, annulling the other and reaffirming itself, 
the policy of the government was left as indeterminate 
at last as at first. Four years after Mr. Pierce's terra, 
a new party came into power, complicating without dis- 
placing the old issues, and rendering a final judgment 
on any of them that much more difficult and distant. 
Thus nearly forty years were consumed in earnest but 
futile efforts to establish a fixed rule of action to guide 
the administration of public affairs in certain matters 
considered to be of vital importance to the nation. 



50 LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. 

After these reiterated trials, nothing seemed more im- 
probable than that a satisfactory conclusion would ever 
be reached by this method of adjustment; and nothing 
seemed more likely than that the majority should con- 
tinue, as heretofore, to shift from side to side to the end 
of the chapter. And yet it was impossible, in the nature 
of things, that this state of indecision should last for- 
ever. Such a condition was opposed to the constitution 
of the human mind. The suspense had already extended 
beyond the average duration of human lifetime; and in- 
stead of improving, it was continually growing worse 
and worse. If the patience of one of the parties had 
not broke down under the last complication, there is no 
telling to what additional excesses the public mind might 
have gone. As it is, the nation, at this moment, is a fit 
emblem of the utter confusion its political dogmas are 
so well calculated to produce. This or a similar climax 
was the inevitable consequence of those dogmas. It 
might have been longer delayed, or it might have hap- 
pened sooner ; but, sooner or later, some such catas- 
trophe was bound to be brought about hy the very 
terms of our political system. 

If it were possible for discussion to produce decision, 
our social policy would have been settled long ago, and 
society would have remained tranquil to this day. The 
greatest possible freedom of inquiry and the widest lati- 
tude of discussion were allowed and indulged during the 
election campaigns mentioned above. Every conceiva- 
ble method of investigation was employed. The country 
was "stumped" from one end to the other. The highest 
order of eloquence resounded over the land. The lowest 
"clap-traps" in the way of oratory were not wanting. 



LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. 51 

Thousands of political newspapers, consecrated to the 
sole purpose of influencing the vote of the majority, 
helped to swell the monstrous inquisition. Nothing, in 
short, that was likely to cause conviction, or persuasion, 
or deception, was left untried. It will reside in the 
memory of all who participated in those notorious cam- 
paigns, how boisterous and stormy they were. Their 
violence, engendered by licentiousness, not liberty, shook 
the nation to its center. Few governments on the earth 
could have withstood such shocks. But, as yet, the con- 
servative spirit of the people was stronger than the dis- 
organizing tendency of their social principles. Never- 
theless, as they swept over the land with their stormy 
debates, they deposited the seeds of future crops of 
whirlwinds, to be afterward reaped in kind, the first of 
which we are now harvesting with blood and tears. 

To say that a perpetual discussion of the foundations 
of society is consistent with social order, is to reverse 
the well-known conditions of human nature, and to place 
the repose of humanity in endless strife and confusion. 
No amount o# intelligence in the people can render such 
an arrangement compatible with that equilibrium which 
it is the design of society to secure; and where that 
intelligence rates low in the scale of intellectual devel- 
opment, the disturbance must be proportionably great. 
So long as there is no standard of right but the indi- 
vidual conscience, and no authority that speaks with the 
voice of command, closing debate peremptorily by pro- 
nouncing judgments that shall be final, society must be 
abandoned to the caprices of opinions as divergent as 
the eccentricities of the human intelligence will allow 
them to be. This state of indecision, with no fixed 



52 LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. 

points of conviction, must in time beget in the public 
mind a kind of morbid perturbation that cannot be pro- 
longed beyond a certain point without serious danger. 
We ignore the deepest necessities of human reason when 
we deny to it the repose it seeks in decisions that are 
irreversible. When the repose of society is dependent 
on the same conditions, how is it conceivable that ra- 
tional men will intrust the stability of government and 
the security of social rights to no firmer basis than that 
afforded by this arbitrary principle ? We would esteem 
him a madman who should resolve and re-resolve, from 
day to day, without ever coming to a definite conclusion 
on anything. If, therefore, it be reckoned madness in 
an individual to be always examining and never decid- 
ing, assuredly no dogmatic consecration of such conduct 
in the aggregate of individuals or in society can consti- 
tute the perfection of social order. The mental irrita- 
tion consequent on the adjournment of important ques- 
tions to readjudications without end, must at last produce 
such a sense of desperation that one party or the other 
would be constrained to appeal to the arbitrament of 
the sword, as a dernier ressort; and if the arrangement 
could be imagined permanent, brute force w^ould once 
more, as of old, sit umpire over the world, and progress 
retrace its steps to the camps of Attila and Gengis 
Khan. 

The political annals of our country aff'ord an apt illus- 
tration of the truth of this argument. All the Presi- 
dential elections anterior to that of 1860 were decisions 
of the majority, affirming and reaffirming the constitu- 
tional guarantees and the policy of the government on 
the subject of slavery, and adjudging to the South the 



POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 53 

undisturbed enjoyment of its peculiar institution. The 
election of Mr. Lincoln was deemed at last to have re- 
versed all those prior decisions, and to have imperiled 
the social rights of the South. For long years before, 
the mental irritation of the Southern people, caused by 
a knowledge of the instability of those popular decisions, 
and by the threatening aspect of the fickle multitude at 
the North, had already become chronic. The knowl- 
edge that, at any moment, their dearest rights were 
liable to be taken from them by an irresponsible ma- 
jority that professed allegiance to a higher law than 
human constitutions, left them no choice as to what 
their conduct should be in the event of their worst fears 
being realized. That point, where patience ceased to 
be a virtue, was deemed to have been reached by the 
election of Mr. Lincoln. The binding force of the con- 
stitution, weakened by the right of individual construc- 
tions, had ceased to afford any sense of security. The 
popular mind, debauched by licentious dogmas and by 
loose sentiments deduced from them, was ripe for any 
disturbance.* The morbid perturbation of Southern so- 
ciety, so long kept up by all these causes, broke out 
into open revolt at the first and flimsiest pretext that 
came to hand, and the present war ensued. 
Here the dogma of 

POPULAR SOVilREIGNTY 

suggests itself, as growing so directly out of the right 
of free inquiry, or liberty of conscience, that the latter 
cannot be treated further without mixing up the former 
with it. Free inquiry, or liberty of conscience, consid- 

6 



54 POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 

ered as absolute, assigns to every one the right of sitting 
in judgment on all social questions whatever; and the 
doctrine of universal suiFrage, as practiced in this coun- 
try, actually consigns those delicate questions, in effect, 
exclusively to the least cultivated understandings of the 
nation's entire population. For the mass of population 
in any country necessarily consists of that class of per- 
sons ; and where universal suffrage obtains, the majority, 
which decides all political questions, must contain the 
least informed minds as the principal element of its 
composition. 

It is universally conceded that social problems are, of 
all others, the most complex and the most difficult of 
solution. For ages they have challenged the attention 
of the best minds, and, like distant nebulw, have hitherto 
defied the highest powers of the human intelligence to 
resolve them. None have so much claim to be consigned 
to the choicest intellects which shall have been highly 
prepared for the investigation of questions so obscure 
and so mixed up with human passions. It would seem, 
then, scarcely consistent with good sense or sound policy 
to turn over these subtle questions to the decisions of 
persons who have never received any intellectual train- 
ing, and the minds of many of whom are almost brutal- 
ized by ignorance. Yet the dogma of popular sover- 
eignty proposes nothing less; and, in the case of this 
country, we actually witness the remarkable phenomenon 
of the government of one of the largest nations on the 
earth delivered into the hands of the most ignorant 
portion of thirty millions of population. The political 
formula that "the majority shall rule," actually accom- 
plishes this anomaly. It condemns all the superior to 



POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 55 



t 



an arbitrary dependence on the multitude of the infe- 
rior ; and it transfers to the people, to the ignorant 
masses, the divine right to govern, which has long been 
the opprobrium of kings. 

I do not assert too much when I say that the majority 
always consists of the most ignorant and inferior portion 
of a nation's population. This is necessarily the case. 
However many degrees of difference there may be, mor- 
ally and intellectually, between the individuals compos- 
ing the majority, it is evident they belong not to the 
choice few, who alone are fitted, by a high natural 
organization and previous preparation, to deal with 
problems so intricate as those upon which society is 
based. It is well known that a very large majority of 
the inhabitants of all nations belongs to what is called 
the masses — the riiclis indigestaque moles humani — a 
phrase which admirably describes those persons who, 
however excellent and useful they may be in their 
places, yet, looked at from an intellectual point of view, 
would scarcely realize one's beau ideal of eminent states- 
men and legislators. With, comparatively speaking, low 
mental and moral organizations, their physical endow- 
ments and exclusively physical training adapt them to 
the material drudgeries of life, and to those laborious 
but necessary offices which they perform so well. Inca- 
pacitated by nature for high intellectual developments, 
even if their time and means allowed the experiment, 
which they do not, it is only routine duties they can 
discharge in the great social hives of humanity. The 
economy of nature has assigned their place in society. 
No artifice can better the arrangement. In all ages 
they have been the mutes in the great drama of the 



56 POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 

Social Evolution, and have passed over the stage of his- 
tory in dumb show, without word or speech, knowing 
the meaning of nothing that goes on. The vis inertia 
of a nation's population, they are blind instruments in 
the hands of others, and are always to be dreaded when 
taken out of their places and set in motion on political 
occasions. 

Whether it was originally intended for earnest or jest, 
it is certain that the celebrated apothegm of vox popuU, 
vox Dei, contains the bitterest irony that ever was 
uttered, to say nothing of its impiety. It has long 
been a favorite text of Fourth-of-July declamation, and 
has no doubt deceived many silly minds. But, not- 
withstanding this consecration of the popular voice, 
there is no instance on record where ever God delivered 
his oracles by the multitude, or nature truths by the 
herd. Though there are many examples recorded of 
individual men having been called to these divine mis- 
sions, and all the great benefits which have, at divers 
times, been conferred on society, have originated, so far 
as we know, from single minds, the masses, on the con- 
trary, have ever been an element of social disturbances; 
and wherever they have appeared conspicuously on the 
field of politics, social cataclysms of one kind or other 
have invariably followed. If, therefore, the people have 
ever been employed as agents in the hands of God for 
any purpose whatever, it has been as instruments of his 
vengeful, not of his beneficent providences; and there 
have been few societies in the world which have not 
experienced, at one time or other, this evidence of 
the divine displeasure. While history abounds with 
evidences of the people's unfitness to be a dominant 



POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 57 

element in any social system, it affords not a single 
instance to the contrary. Vox populi, vox diaholi, 
therefore, would be a much more appropriate aphorism 
than the other. 

It is to the arbitrary and variable decisions of a mul- 
titude so incompetent that the doctrine of popular sov- 
ereignty abandons all social questions whatever. Now, 
imagine ideas, upon which depends the very existence 
of society, consigned, not for one time only but for all 
time, to a heterogeneous mass like this: is it conceiv- 
able that any government could resist forever the dis- 
solving action of so much diversity, and of such corrosive 
discussion as is authorized by the dogma of free inquiry? 
So far from it, all true social order is incompatible with 
the vagabond liberty of individual minds here implied. 
If such license were to last, a dissolution of the social 
state must ensue, through the ever-growing divergence 
of individual understandings. We all know the kind 
of frenzy that seizes the popular mind on occasions of 
important political elections; how little of reason, and 
how much of passion, sways the deliberations of the 
people; and how completely their individual understand- 
ings are delivered over to their disorderly impulses, and 
to the impurest of motives. Now, is it probable that, 
under these circumstances, ideas, upon which depends 
the safety of society, and which are of all others the 
most easily perverted, are likely to receive the best in- 
terpretations of which they are susceptible ? 

To these objections it may be replied, that the gov- 
ernment of this country, erected upon the polity here 
arraigned, has so far procured order and progress that 
society, under its protection, has developed in an un- 

6* 



58 POPULAE SOVEREIGNTY. 

precedented manner, and that no element of true great- 
ness in the life of a nation has been neglected, but all 
have advanced pari passu, within an incredibly short 
time, to the highest eminence ever reached in the oldest 
nations. 

This is true. It would be a waste of time to enu- 
merate all the causes that have been most active in 
procuring such extraordinary results: they are patent 
to every mind that has paid the least attention to the 
history of the times. The social marvels we have 
witnessed have been brought about, not in consequence 
of the democratic polity, but in spite of it. All other 
conditions remaining the same, similar results might 
have been procured under an Oriental despotism. The 
country was so young, so fresh, so vigorous, that it w^as 
able to bear a great deal of bad government, even if 
such had existed; but, in point of fact, the general ad- 
ministration of the government has, in the main, been 
admirable. Very little fault is to be found with the 
general details of the constitution or government, or 
with the manner of their administration; these have 
afforded large compensating advantages against the dis- 
organizing tendencies of the democratic principles. The 
abrasions of the latter could not wear away in a day 
the conservative influences of the former. 

Time is an important element in developing whatever 
of good or evil may reside in the social principles of a 
nation; and assuredly less time could not have been 
expected than has actually sufficed to bring out the 
vicious tendencies of the democratic polity, against all 
the counteracting influences that have been arrayed in 
opposition. Not the least of these influences is a con- 



POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 59 

servative principle in human nature which protects 
society a great while against the worst social system 
that ever was devised. To say that society is composed 
of men is sufficient to account for the orderly working 
of any form of government for a considerable length of 
time. Man is essentially social in his nature ; he bears 
within himself certain notions of order, of justice, of 
reason, with a strong desire to bring them into action, 
which compel him to live in the best organized society 
he can obtain. If his society be not the best, he will 
endure what he cannot cure; but he is much more in- 
clined to cure than to endure. For this he labors 
unceasingly; and if his social system continue, his 
labor in the long run will not be in vain. Sooner or 
later he will make his social system fit his social nature, 
or conform to his social ideas, as the shell fits the oyster. 
For this time is needed; and also terrible violence is 
not unfrequently needed. 

There is, therefore, in all societies, a wise reserve of 
popular good sense, which tends unceasingly to restrict 
political aberrations. The social spirit of this people 
possesses no inconsiderable degree of that conservative 
quality which capacitates them for resisting the disor- 
ganizing instincts of the worst social principles as long 
perhaps as any other people in the world. They have 
been not inaptly styled "Nature's democrats;" and 
the principle of self-government is, without doubt, the 
strongest of their social instincts. To arrange them- 
selves into regularly organized bodies is as natural to 
them as breathing. This spirit of organization pursues 
them in all the relations of life. With no power stronger 
than their own ivilh to enforce obedience to the rules 



60 POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 

of their voluntary organizations, they are seldom found 
untrue to a due observance of them. 

With such a people, then, for the base of a nation's 
population, and in view of that speculative inertia so 
common to large masses of persons, it is not wonderful 
that, up to this time, a certain amount of order should 
have been procured by this government, sufficient for 
the development of the national greatness, marvelous 
as it has been. Still less is our wonder excited when 
we reflect how short a time this security has lasted. 
The wonder is that it should have lasted no longer. No 
one looked to see it broken up so soon. And if this is 
to be considered the terminus of the national pros- 
perity, or of the orderly working of the government, 
under the inspiration of the principles which have hith- 
erto animated it, stronger proof could not be asked of 
the disorganizing tendency of those principles. And 
that this government, in its present form, has failed to 
answer the ends of its creation, and will progressively 
demonstrate its incapacity as time advances, shall be 
the business of this work to show. 

But there is one other cause why this disorganization 
did not begin sooner ; and this cause I shall do no more 
than designate, and pass on to other considerations. 
Numbers, also, as well as time, are needed to discover 
the vices of a political system like this. A sparse popu- 
lation, scattered over an almost endless extent of ter- 
ritory, would leave those vices undiscovered forever. 
Until very recently, the population of this country bore 
no proportion to its' territory; nor does it do so even 
now, comparatively speaking. But up to the beginning 
of the present revolution, the rapidity of its increase 



POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 61 

had no parallel in history. If the same ratio of increase 
be renewed and continued, it will not be many genera- 
tions before the land will be as overstocked with inhab- 
itants as Belgium or China, or the most crowded nation 
in the world. When teeming millions are thrown to- 
gether, and the dense masses are effervescing with the 
rank passions and ranker vices of human nature, then 
the effects, upon such multitudes, of the wild liberty of 
the democratic polity, must be left to the imagination 
to conceive. 

Of course I can have no objection to self-government, 
nor to the largest liberty compatible with order. But 
license is not liberty; and the first principle of self- 
government is self-denial. It is the universal and abso- 
lute character claimed for the democratic dogmas, and 
their consequent excesses in practice, against which 
these strictures are directed. Of the right of liberty 
of conscience, and of the people to be represented in 
government, there is no manner of doubt. But these 
rights are relative, not absolute ; they have their limita- 
tions and qualifications; and it is to define these that 
government is instituted. What else is meant by the 
word governmentydcQ well as by the thing itself, but the 
imposition of salutary restraints on unbounded liberty 
and the lawless exercise of natural rights ? It is liberty 
with laws, and government without oppression, which 
society seeks. 

The democratic polity, however, in effect not only 
ignores these restraints, but virtually seeks to restore 
man to what is supposed to have been his original state 
of nature, to the unqualified enjoyment of all natural 
rights, and to the wild liberty of untamed nature. That 



62 POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 

is, the tendency of those principles is that way; not 
that they would be able to land humanity in such a con- 
dition : the laws of human nature forbid it. This is not 
a forced construction of the tendency of the democratic 
doctrine. The design was actually avowed, in so many 
words, by a class of writers — I will not call them phi- 
losophers — of the French nation ; for it is to France we 
must go to see this doctrine in its best aspect of consist- 
ency and power, not only in its practical workings at 
the most marked period of her Revolution, but in the 
pages of writers who best reflected the spirit of the age 
and people. The doctrine, as thus seen in France, at 
its highest point of culmination, represents civilization 
as an ever-growing degeneracy from the primitive ideal 
type; and that all political reformation must be regarded 
as destined to re-establish that primitive state. This 
original condition of man expresses the metaphysical 
notion, common to all modern metaphysicians, of a sup- 
posed state of nature, which is destined to become the 
invariable type of every social state. It is the meta- 
physical form of the old theological idea of the state of 
innocence and simplicity, in which man existed in Eden 
before the fall. Degraded from this happy mode of life 
by the commission of a crime known as original sin, he 
must now gradually work his way back by a series of 
political reforms. No social change can be considered 
a reform which does not tend to bring about this resto- 
ration. Democracy was thought to be an immense stride 
in that direction, since it seemed to release man from all 
political and moral restraints, and to elevate him at 
once to his original state of nature, and to the lost image 
of his Maker. This doctrine was not peculiar to Rous- 



POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. ' 63 

seau alone: that writer, by his urgent dialectics, only 
pushed it to its last consequences. It is the central 
idea of Schlegel's Philosophy of History, of his Philos- 
ophy of Life; and is reproduced in his Philosophy of 
Language. The French Revolution was, consciously or 
unconsciously, inaugurated to reduce it to practice. After 
displacing the old order, the French Revolution sought 
to re-establish in its stead a sort of metaphysical poly- 
theism, something in the manner of the Greco-Roman 
system, as being nearer the primitive type. This, it 
will be seen at once, was nothing else but organizing, 
instead of a progression, a universal retrogradation; a 
substitution, for one decrepit system, of a more ancient 
and decrepit system still.* 

The necessity for some sort of restraint on the wild 
liberty of the democratic polity, was of course felt by 
those eminent men who presided at the birth of this 
nation and assisted in organizing its government. An 
attempt was accordingly made to deprive the principle 
of the dangerous energy it had acquired while engaged 
in executing its revolutionary mission in Europe. This 
was believed to have been amply accomplished by the 
formation of a constitution so filled with checks and 
guards that it was thought a due balance was obtained 
which never could be destroyed. Results, however, have 
since demonstrated that the framers of the constitution 
were dealing with a principle more subtle than their 
sagacity; and that its wild liberty was not to be barred 
in one direction, while it was left free in another. 



* See Comte's Positive Philosophy. 



64 POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 

For example, the constitution recognized the exist- 
ence of slavery ; placed property in slaves on an equal 
footing with every other species of property; and made 
the most formal and solemn provision it could devise for 
its protection. At the same time, however, the dogmas 
of popular sovereignty and equality were recognized as 
co-ordinate principles of nature and society. Accord- 
ing to these dogmas, "all men are born free and equal." 
Freedom and equality, therefore, are birthrights which 
all men inherit from nature, guaranteed to them by the 
laws of God, which laws society is bound to re-enact. 
Hence, the recognition of slavery by the constitution 
is treason against nature, against the laws of God, and 
against what ought to be laws of society. The consti- 
tution, therefore, is null and void pro tanto; and slavery, 
by a superior ordinance of nature, is an illegal institu- 
tion. Thus was reached, as a last but necessary corol- 
lary of those dogmas, the "higher law" doctrine, which 
alone sufficed to release the democratic polity from the 
restraints put on it by the constitution. 

From the same premises flows, by irresistible impli- 
cation, the doctrine of universal suffrage^ not less dan- 
gerous than the other, but infinitely more disgusting, as 
a practical measure of government. Universal suffrage 
is not a provision of the constitution; it is not specified 
as a necessary part of the republican form of govern- 
ment required by the constitution to be adopted by all 
the States; it is not obligatory on any State to adopt 
it as a clause of its constitution ; it is an inference only, 
deduced, like the "higher law," from the democratic 
principles; and in order to carry those principles out as 
far as possible, according to their full intent and mean- 



POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 65 

ing, it came in time to be pretty generally adopted by 
most of the States. 

When we look at the entire population — consisting of 
thirty millions as it now does in this country, or of sixty 
millions as it is likely soon to do — and consider the 
mass of ignorance, stupidity, vice, and corruption of 
which it is composed, nothing, surely, at first sight, 
could seem more revolting to common sense than an 
arrangement which would base government on such a 
mass of putrescence for a secure foundation. The 
"higher law" doctrine, viewed, for the first time, by 
the side of it, would appear reasonable and eminently 
proper. Nevertheless, we have not only seen the infer- 
ence of universal suffrage admitted, but the right itself 
reduced to practice. It is now considered to be nothing 
more than an act of simple justice, due as well to one 
description of persons as to another. Indeed, the ar- 
rangement has long been regarded as the very best that 
could be devised by the wit of man, for the peace of 
society and the orderly working of government. 

After witnessing the perpetration of an extravagance 
like that, and even becoming familiar with it and recon- 
ciled to it, and still remaining unconscious of any evils 
likely to flow from it, — after that, I say, we are not at 
liberty to sneer at the "higher law" doctrine, as an un- 
authorized derivative of the democratic principles, and 
as never likely to be adopted, as a political axiom, by 
any party. In effect, it has already been reduced to 
practice, and has borne its fruits. The passage of "Per- 
sonal Liberty Laws" by certain States, in direct con- 
travention of a law of Congress, on the ground that the 
latter was opposed to a law of God, is, to all intents and 

*7 



66 POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 

purposes, a practical application of that doctrine; and 
nothing but time is needed to translate it into a gener- 
ally received maxim of government. 

We have seen high public functionaries and individual 
States claiming, and even exercising, the right of con- 
struing the constitution according to their own under- 
standings of it; and I have shown how irresistible is 
the deduction thence of the right of everybody else to 
do the same thing. Some of the ulterior consequences 
likely to flow from this practice have already been 
pointed out, and I shall not stop here to enumerate 
others. This pretended right is not less justly a deriv- 
ative of the democratic principles than universal suf- 
frage, or the higher law; nor is it more anarchical than 
they. The constitution and government would be just as 
apt to enjoy a perpetuity of existence under the patron- 
age of one of these ideas as of another, or of all as of 
one. The right of individual interpretation of laws 
would have an equal chance, with both or either of the 
other two, of being, some time or other, transferred to 
practice, provided society, under existing circumstances, 
could last long enough to adopt it. The only difficulty 
in the way of democracy running itself, out in practice 
to all its last consequences, is the want of time. Each 
sentiment is so disorganizing, that it dissolves society 
almost as soon as applied. If government had survived 
the inflictions of the democratic principles already 
adopted, there is no reason why all the extreme infer- 
ences authorized by the same polity should not, with 
equal propriety, follow, in regular order and in due 
course of time, those which preceded them. But the 
powers of social systems, like those of the human body, 



POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 67 

are limited, and intolerant of excesses. They will not 
endure to have too great a strain put on them. In the 
case of our government, the point of endurance would 
seem to have been passed; and we may now pronounce 
our social system to be in the articles of death. 

On many accounts, the dogma of popular sovereignty 
is hostile to the perpetuity or long continuance of any 
constitution. The excellence of a constitution is no bar 
to the dissolving tendencies of such a principle. To 
what purpose make a constitution, and declare a sov- 
ereign power above it? How can a constitution be the 
supreme law of the land, and the people supreme also? 
All the explanations, which have ever been attempted, 
of this contradiction, have proved to be mere sophistries. 
Words can only conceal, they cannot reconcile, the con- 
trariety. Facts are the best commentaries of the ab- 
surdity ; and facts have demonstrated the impracticability 
of such a government. The sovereignty of the people is 
represented by the majority; and the majority rules. 
So long as the majority choose to respect the constitu- 
tion, it is law; the submission of the majority is volun- 
tary; there is no compulsory power to oblige obedience. 
Against the will of the majority, there are no guarantees 
for the continuance of the constitution from one day to 
another. Under such conditions, a constitution may 
govern, by courtesy, for seventy-five years, and fail on 
the seventy-sixth; or it may not last a single year, or 
even a day. In this country, there is a constant organ- 
ization of the majority, capable of expressing its will at 
any moment. It is perfectly irresponsible, bound by 
no authority above itself, except an implied pledge of 
faith. Plighted faith might have some binding efficacy 



68 POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 

on an individual ; but against the passions, the interests, 
the opinions, the moral sense of the multitude compos- 
ing the majority, this bond is a mere rope of sand. The 
majority may interpret away the constitution, evade it, 
or put it away peremptorily. As the constitution exists 
only by the tolerance, so the rights of the minority exist 
only by the forbearance, of the majority: no sure guar- 
antees are possible. 

Under the auspices of the democratic dogmas, with 
their licentious inferences and latitudinous construc- 
tions, there is so much margin for evasions, that the 
majority need seldom resort to direct violations of the 
constitution in order to effect the worst purposes. The 
first method, which is the usual one, is even more in- 
tolerable than the other. There is some merit in a 
highway robber confronting you in the face of day and 
boldly demanding your purse ; but none in a sneaking 
thief picking your pockets while persuading you of his 
honesty. In the first case, there are at least the virtues 
of courage and candor; in the other, nothing but fraud 
and cowardice. If I be robbed, what matters it to me 
whether there be a pretext or no pretext? whether 
there be a "higher law" or no law in heaven or on 
earth for it ? 

The "higher law" doctrine, flowing directly, as I 
have shown, from the democratic dogmas, leads to the 
rejection of all municipal laws which may happen to be 
offensive to the moral sense of a community: the pas- 
sage thence to its interests is an easy one. Under such 
a law, the abolition or the confiscation of property, so 
far from being difficult, is almost inevitable. On pre- 
tense of conscientious scruples, this doctrine led vir- 



POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 69 

tually to the repudiation of the constitution on the 
subject of slavery, and to the nullification of laws 
passed by Congress for the more effectual execution of 
the constitutional provisions on that subject. In effect, 
this is nothing more nor less than the abrogation of 
laws made for the protection of property. The species 
of property, thus taken away from the guardianship of 
the law, makes no difference in the case. If the majority 
assume the right of annulling the law in the respect of 
one description of property, it will find, or create, a 
pretext for withdrawing some other kind from legal 
protection. 

Here is revealed the most dangerous, the most revo- 
lutionary and anarchical tendency yet betrayed by the 
fundamental dogmas of our government. It clearly 
indicates the necessary proclivity of the democratic 
instincts toward that social vortex, the abolition or con- 
fiscation of all property, which, whenever it is reached, 
will engulf society in irretrievable ruin. Nor is this 
the first manifestation of the tendency of popular sov- 
ereignty in that fatal direction. We are not left in 
doubt as to its capacity that way. Its genius for such 
work has been too often displayed, for us ever again to 
mistake its power or inclination to repeat the same role 
"whenever the opportunity offers. History is not silent 
on this part of its performances. In Rome, more than 
two thousand years ago, when popular sovereignty was 
in the ascendency, it established a precedent on that 
subject, which has ever since been quoted, as high 
authority, by the tribunes of the people everywhere. 
The Agrarian law of the Roman plebeians has been 
held up, for imitation, to all subsequent ages which 



70 POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 

have witnessed the temporary domination of the popu- 
lace. The division of property made in Rome, under 
that law, took place under political circumstances but 
little, if at all, different from the social conditions w^hich 
have obtained in this country; and the tendency of 
things here, so far, points to a similar catastrophe. 

Or, if we need an example of more modern date, it 
is to France again we must go in order to obtain a pre- 
sentment of what popular sovereignty is capable of doing 
in this as in other respects. Whether it be in ancient 
or in modern times, in Rome or in France, mankind is 
ever the same; and, under similar circumstances, will 
always act in pretty much the same way. Coelum, non 
animum, mutant, qui trans mare currunt; the mere 
crossing the Atlantic alters not the human mind : popu- 
lar sovereignty, under whatever sky it plays its fantas- 
tic tricks, will still repeat itself; its animus is the same 
in America as in Rome, as in France; and, until the 
organization of humanity be changed, its conduct will 
vary but little anywhere. 

In France, then, the organs of democracy, at the 
epoch of its highest intensification, announced in so 
many words that "all property is robbery;" and though 
no agrarian law was ever passed, that measure was 
warmly advocated, and at one time became, next to the 
guillotine, the most threatening aspect of the Revolu- 
tion. The preoccupation of the actors in the more 
stirring scenes of their bloody drama suspended, for 
the moment, this crowning Act of the Piece; and the 
reaction, which in happy hour set in, snatched that dis- 
tracted country from the very jaws of agrarianism. 
Nothing but a little more time was needed for popular 



POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 71 

sovereignty to run, on that occasion, the full circuit of 
its usual career. Under the whip and spur, which put 
it to such high speed in the French Revolution, it broke 
down before it could complete the last "quarter stretch" 
to the goal which is the inevitable terminus of its natural 
life. It met a premature ruin in the excess of its velocity ; 
and in its untimely end consisted the safety of society. 
Nevertheless, during the short period of its rapid ex- 
istence, it found time to confiscate nearly half the prop- 
erty of the nation, and not only to impoverish, but to 
expatriate the wealthiest citizens of the land, for no 
other crime but their obtrusive opulence. The posses- 
sion of such large estates, beyond the necessary wants 
of the owners, was in the highest degree offensive to the 
moral sense of this conscientious principle. The pro- 
prietors of those estates were, in many instances, guil- 
lotined for the unpardonable sin of inheriting patrimonies 
which "robbed" of the necessaries of life so many per- 
sons better than they, or as good. For these involuntary 
crimes against the moral sense or the interests of popular 
sovereignty, the representatives of the nation's wealth 
and power were inexorably decimated. The proscrip- 
tion began at the top of society; and the king himself 
was beheaded for the unintentional offense of having 
been unconsciously born to the inheritance of a crown. 
As the heirships of fortunes and high social positions 
entailed upon the hapless possessors the hereditaments 
of crime and punishment, the decapitations and confis- 
cations were rapidly descending to the lowest culprits, 
when the recoil rescued the country from the oppression 
of its multitudinous tyrants, and consigned it to the 
tender mercies of a solitary despot. 



72 POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 

It must not be forgotten that these deeds were enacted 
in the bosom of the foremost nation of the world, at the 
most enlightened period of its history; that the ranks 
of popular sovereignty, on that memorable occasion, 
contained some of the first men of the nation, or of the 
age, or of any age or nation; that the alumm of learn- 
ing, of science, of art, of eloquence, statesmanship, and 
war — sages, heroes, patriots, philanthropists — all that 
were esteemed wise and good — flocked with the rest to 
this standard of democracy, as symbolizing the cause 
of civilization itself; that they identified the highest 
social interests of humanity with the democratic prin- 
ciples, which were believed to be the renovators of so- 
ciety, and destined to carry it forward to perfection. 
We must not, therefore, repeat the common error of 
supposing it was the rabble only who enlisted in this 
frightful crusade. The rabble were there undoubtedly, 
all of them, in full force, a terrible array! the very 
orgie of Sans-Culottism ! It was mainly into their hands 
the Revolution ultimately fell; and it was they, princi- 
pally, who carried it out of the benevolent designs in 
which it originated. They and their deeds were the 
ultimatum of the Revolution, its last but necessary 
corollaries, its real conclusions. The democratic prin- 
ciples, the premises from which those extreme conse- 
quences were drawn, were not wholly innocent of the 
horrid deductions; they authorized all the excesses which 
wxre perpetrated in their name. In spite of those ex- 
travagances, and the signal failure of the democratic 
principles to accomplish any of the marvels expected of 
them, some of the first men of France, and elsewhere, 
remained firm in the democratic faith to the last. The 



POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 73 

Gracchi were the best and noblest of the Romans, they 
were the ''jewels of the State," brave, generous, hu- 
mane; and yet their zeal for the popular cause hurried 
them beyond the bounds of moderation and justice. 
They passed the agrarian law from the purest of mo- 
tives; and their lives fell a sacrifice to the energy of 
their honesty. 

Socialism, a new term for agrarianism, and almost 
the synonym of popular sovereignty/, is so essentially 
an offshoot of the democratic principles, that we can 
scarcely doubt the role it is destined to play here some 
day or other. This phrase is identical with communism, 
a new French word corresponding with radicalism. The 
idea it covers came into France cotemporaneously with 
the democratic principles, or rather was suggested by 
them at a very early period of their advent. Like other 
democratic dogmas, it has ever since struggled for life 
in European societies ; but it is there kept down by the 
strong hand of heavily armed governments. 

Many years ago, socialism- crossed the Atlantic, and 
attempted to naturalize itself in this country. But it 
was soon put to rest here by the cheap lands, the abund- 
ant resources, and the wondrous facilities for making 
not only livelihoods, but fortunes. Its arrival hither 
was premature. None of the conditions of the times or 
country were favorable to its immediate success. It 
accordingly retired from the busy surface of society. 
But it sleeps only: it is not dead; and may at any 
moment start into active life and gigantic proportions. 

Hitherto, confiscation was with us an idea only. It 
was something about which we had heard and read a 
great deal; but the practice of it was associated in our 



74 POPULAR SOYEHEIGNTY. 

minds witli times of violence and with nations but im- 
perfectly civilized. It was thought to be a relic of bar- 
barism not at all applicable to our society. The progress 
of civilization, the organization of justice on higher and 
better understood principles, the enlightenment of edu- 
cation, and the superior claims of a mild and beneficent 
Christianity were deemed to have left that method of 
spoliation far behind in past ages when men were cruel 
and rapacious. Confiscation has ever been a convenient 
and fruitful pretext for the gratification of the black 
passions of revenge and cupidity. It is at best but a 
species of legalized robbery. Avarice and hatred alone 
conspired to keep it alive during the worst periods of 
history. We have shuddered as we perused those records 
of barbarity; and have congratulated ourselves on being 
elevated, by the terms of our civilization, far above the 
reach of cruelties the practice of which degraded men 
to the level of savages. While we have witnessed, in 
the pages of history, human beings preying upon each 
other like wild beasts, stripping each other of rights, of 
property, of everything calculated to make life endura- 
ble, we have blessed the religion, the laws, the education 
which rescued us from the possibility of such a fate. 
Confiscation is unknown to our constitution. It has 
never found a place in our statutes. It is passing away 
from modern usages everywhere; and is fast becoming 
an anacronism of the age. The most advanced nations 
practice it sparingly, or not at all. 

But all this is now changed. Confiscation has ceased 
to be with us a mere idea. Its practice is no longer a 
novelty. It is not now, as formerly, one of the hear- 
says of history, terrifying us with the bare recital of its 



POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 75 

cruelties. We have already familiarized our minds with 
its performances. We have invoked it from the musty 
traditions of the past. The law of nations, enacted ages 
before our society was born, has furnished us with pre- 
cedents for its use. The change has been like a turn of 
the kaleidoscope. In a single day our civilization has 
receded many centuries. Barbarities, thought to be ob- 
solete, are revived ; and we are not so much shocked by 
their presence, as we were wont to be by their narratives. 
We travel in a circle. We are playing the same history 
over again. Our social ideas are turning back into old 
political grooves; and we are seeking, in the exploded 
institutions of rude epochs, for models w^hich, in our 
estimation, are alone worthy of imitation. 

This war was begun with confiscations on a large 
scale by both parties. Each party aimed to fill its 
empty treasury by despoiling innocent individuals of 
their private property. The millions to be thus appro- 
priated were coolly calculated. There seem to have 
been no compunctious visitings of conscience for this 
act of treachery, which was as cruel to the unsuspecting 
victims as it was unworthy a great people. Never was 
there a punishment more undeserved. The crime for 
which these persons suffered w^as that of residing in one 
section of the country and owning property in the other. 
They had all their lives been in the habit of considering 
both sections as their common country. They could not 
serve both sides — and perhaps were unwilling to serve 
either side against the other. Their affections and their 
interests were equally divided. They gloried in the 
grandeur of the united nation, and would have laid 
down their lives for its preservation against foreign 



76 POrULAK SOVEREIGNTY. 

aggression. Since the foundation of the government, 
the laws and customs of either section had invited the 
capital and labor of the other, with not only an implied 
but an expressed pledge of protection. The intercourse 
was mutual and unreserved. Their capital and labor 
had enriched both sections. No suspicion of treachery 
was entertained. In an hour they were betrayed. No 
sufficient time was allowed them to secure the fruits of 
their honest toil. Without any fault of theirs, they 
were mercilessly delivered over to plunder, under the 
imposing name of confiscation. This, then, was the im- 
potent conclusion of the boasted progress of the age. 
It was to obtain such results that man has suffered so 
much and so long. He has drenched the world with his 
blood to secure immunity against oppression and injus- 
tice; and in the end he finds himself suddenly turned 
back to the age of Grotius, and Puffendorf, and Yattel. 
Democracy, "the last hope of humanity," has been able 
to conduct society only to this bad eminence, and a 
reproduction of antiquated barbarisms is the sum of its 
vaunted reforms. This is treading back its footsteps to 
its favorite "state of nature" with frightful speed. 

It is useless to attempt to fasten the blame of all this 
upon any section. The administration at Washington, 
acting as the organ of abolitionism, threatens to confis- 
cate the property of eight millions of citizens, amounting 
to countless billions of dollars' worth, just as soon as it 
can obtain the power to do so. This threat was not 
prompted wholly by a sense of justice. The rebellion 
will be but the jJJ'etext for the anarchical principle now 
presiding at the seat of government, to gratify one of 
its strongest instincts. The execution of the threat, if 



POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 77 

carried out to the full extent promised, will be more 
monstrous even than secession itself. Thousands of 
persons will fall victims to it who were as innocent of 
secession as babes unborn. Secession may be sup- 
pressed, and good may be extracted from it; but the 
other will be an unmitigated evil, the fatal consequences 
of which will pursue the nation to its grave. Confisca- 
tion is neither just nor generous. Good citizens were 
never made by such means. It neither deters from 
guilt nor superinduces penitence. It is a punishment 
fit for slaves, not for freemen. It is unworthy the dig- 
nity and true manhood of human nature, and indicates 
no progress made in the science of government or in 
enlightened culture. If Christianity and universal edu- 
cation — the peculiar boast of the age — can prompt to 
no loftier deeds, then they, too, must be counted among 
the m.ournful failures of human experiments. Like the 
constitution and government of this country, — both so 
admirable in themselves, — Christianity, the daughter of 
Heaven, and Education, her handmaiden, are neutralized 
by the pernicious influences of social principles which 
dissipate the human mind in endless abstractions, and 
in futile efforts to realize ideas which are hostile to both 
order and progress. As we advance further in this 
investigation, we shall be more and more convinced of 
the truth of this assertion. Each step we take will not 
only strengthen our conviction, but will aid in conduct- 
ing us to a solution of the present difficulties of our 
situation. We have seen some of the effects of popular 
sovereignty. There is another product of this dogma, 
Avhich imparts to it peculiar vitality and efficacy, which 
must now be noticed, and its place assigned in this 



78 DEMAGOGUES. 

general disorganizing and demoralizing process. That 
product is the 

DEMAGOGUES. 

The effervescence incident to the working of such a 
composition as our social system threw in time to the 
surface of society, as it was bound to do, a class of per- 
sons of all others the most dangerous in a government 
like this. Without the demagogues, the masses would 
be innocent and democracy harmless. But the dema- 
gogues, thus developed, are the natural consequence and 
complement of the system. The dogma of popular sov- 
ereignty, with its universal suffrage and majority rule, 
having introduced the populace on the stage of politics, 
and made them the dictators of society, they must of 
course, in order to discharge their functions, supply 
themselves with organs. These organs must represent, 
as near as possible, their own intellectual caliber, ex- 
press their ideas, cater to their passions, and subserve 
their interests. The kind of persons thus to be acted 
on, the means to be employed, and the ends to be ob- 
tained must tend to remove elevated minds and superior 
understandings from a political career, and to deliver 
over the government to charlatanism and inferiority. 
Accordingly, presumptuous and enterprising mediocrity 
has never before had so fortunate a chance. Popular 
sovereignty has covered over the whole surface of society 
with these social parasites, and consigned the government 
almost exclusively to their hands. Of course they can 
do no otherwise than work out their own political ideas, 
and bring down the administration of government to the 



DEMAGOGUES. 79 

level of their own moral and intellectual training. As 
that standard falls far below the ideal of a pure Chris- 
tianity and an ever-advancing civilization, which tends 
to social perfection, it must contradict their aspirations, 
and remain an obstacle to progress, until eliminated by 
revolution, or by a rational method of reform. 

The demagogues are a sort of summary or resum^ of 
all the vices of our political system. They represent it, 
in its least favorable aspect, more correctly than any 
other single feature can pretend to do. A detailed and 
accurate description of the demagogues, would give a 
very clear and precise notion of the system generally. 
Belonging to a low social status, — commonly without 
much education, without mental discipline, without vir- 
tue or common honesty, without fortune ; negative in 
all things but an ill-concealed hatred, not of wealth, but 
of the wealthy, not of respectability, but of the respect- 
able, — the demagogues yet possess a wondrous mental 
activity, more of the character of cunning than intelli- 
gence. This cunning compensates, in some degree, their 
ignorance, since it serves their bad ends more effectually 
than the best education or the most cultivated intelli- 
gence could do without it. The restless activity of their 
minds, thus guided by shrewdness, and untrammeled by 
the restraints of an enlightened conscience, is more than 
a match for the intellectual inertia of the masses, on 
whom they operate. With little interest in the welfare 
of the country, and regardless of consequences, they 
will, to serve their selfish ends, cater to the worst pas- 
sions of the multitude, on whom they depend for their 
elevation. They are to the multitude what the vital 
principle is to the body. They are the head, the brain, 



80 DEMAGOGUES. 

of which the people are the working members. They 
make the people acquainted with their own passions, 
their wants, their desires. They tell them their rights, 
their power, their influence in the government. Abund- 
antly supplied with political clap-traps, and with a rude 
eloquence compounded of Billingsgate and anecdotes, 
they can and do, when the occasion comes about, inflame 
to a white-heat the passions of the multitude, which are 
then manifested like the torrent and the whirlwind. In 
return, the people surrender themselves to their guid- 
ance, make them the exclusive managers of public 
afi"airs, and elevate them, upon their shields, as it were, 
like the old Roman soldiers, to the head of the govern- 
ment. And for this elevation they claim, like the 
Pretorian guards, the usual bounty bestowed on such 
occasions. 

Here, then, is a combination which embodies the most 
stupendous political power that can be conceived of, and 
which no government or nation on earth can long with- 
stand. It is a combination which mobilizes the masses, 
and gives to democracy all its capacity for evil ; for the 
government thus administered is bound to reflect the 
passions of the multitude, and to reproduce their ideas. 
Without this alliance, the demagogues would be power- 
less, the masses motionless, democracy harmless, and — 
shall I say it? — this war had never been begun, nor this 
work written. 



EQUALITY. 81 



EQUALITY. 



This dogma, one of the three elements of the demo- 
cratic trinity, has only been considered incidentally, in 
connection with the other two, as constituting a unity. 
If it be separated, and treated by itself, it will be found 
not less disorganizing than the others. Like liberty of 
conscience, or free inquiry, it is taken to be absolute 
when it is only relative, and permanent while it ex- 
presses merely the attitude of minds engaged in break- 
ing up the old system. When the dogma of equality, 
in connection with its associate principles, had achieved 
the overthrow of the theological and military regime, it 
could not become otherwise than destructive to any new 
organization of society that might be attempted upon its 
suggestion, because its activity must then be directed 
against the basis of any new classification whatever; 
for, of course, any division of society into classes must 
be inconsistent with the equality claimed for all.* 

It has been justly said, that many truths lose their 
force by repetition. The most absurd fallacies are per- 
petuated by similar means. They are repeated until 
they are believed in. Being handed down to us as tra- 
ditional truths, they are accepted, without examination, 
as mere matters of course. The mind, from early famil- 
iarity with them, never thinks of questioning their claims 
to veracity. This is especially true of many of the social 
maxims of modern times. For eighty-seven years we 

* See Comte's admirable remarks on this subject, in his Positive 
Philosophy. 

8* 



82 EQUALITY. 

have repeated so often the ad captandum assertion that 
"all men are created equal," until we have at last 
brought ourselves to accept it as an ascertained fact. 
No amount of experience and observation, nor the most 
contradictory reasons, seem capable of shaking this be- 
lief from its fast anchorage in the modern mind. It is 
an error so transparent that we have but to open our 
ejes to see it, and yet we have repeated it into a truism 
which it is treason against common sense to question. 
"The inalienable rights of man" are spoken of with as 
undoubting faith as if they really existed; and "right 
reason," the most undefined of all verbal imposture, is 
appealed to, as the conclusive foundation of this puerile 
card-house of rickety abstractions. If these crotchets 
had confined themselves to Fourth-of-July orations, there 
would have been little need to interrupt a pleasant delu- 
sion; but when serious attempts are made to apply them 
practically, and to form out of them a system of govern- 
ment upon which depends the welfare of society and the 
happiness of humanity, then, like other time-honored 
fallacies, they must be weighed in the balances. 

The period of the American Revolution, when Mr. 
Jefierson, acting as the organ of the American Congress, 
brought forth his celebrated "Declaration of Independ- 
ence," was the epoch of greatest political disturbance in 
the world. The cause of this disturbance has already 
been stated. Few minds, even of the largest caliber, 
can resist being influenced by the popular sentiments of 
the age in which they live. Mr. Jefferson very truly 
reflected the spirit of his; and was so adapted to the 
disposition of his cotemporaries, that he became, with 
remarkable success, the most veritable organ of the revo- 



EQUALITY. 83 

lutionary movement of the times. The Declaration of 
Independence, which he has the credit of composing, 
contains a pretty accurate summary of some of the most 
conspicuous revolutionary sentiments of the age, which, 
in this country, were christened with the name of demo- 
cratic principles. Among them, the dogma of equality 
is rendered very prominent, and is made universal and 
absolute by an unqualified assertion of it. 

Thus considered, the principle of equality abrogates 
the most conspicuous arrangement anywhere to be seen 
in the universe, and reduces all things to that dead level 
said to be hateful to gods and men. Certainly nothing 
can be more abhorrent to nature than the equality here 
asserted, for nowhere in her domain do we see anything 
at all resembling it. If in the external world we see no 
manifestation of any such principle, much less is it visi- 
ble in the moral world. It is not possible to make men 
equal, because they are not so. Nature has stamped 
them with an ineradicable inequality which no artifice 
can displace. Nor are they equivalent: the diiFerences 
are not compensatory; they are unqualified, and mark 
an ascending and descending scale, the extremities of 
which are as far asunder as the poles. In no state 
of association, therefore, can men possess an identity of 
rights, beyond that of equal protection by the laws; and 
the society which does not meet these natural dispa- 
rates by some corresponding social arrangement, is only 
preparing trouble for itself; the friction and irritation 
caused by this want of fitness will allow humanity no 
rest until it make its social state fit all the natural ine- 
qualities which exist in itself. Of all the disparates, of 
which the world is so full, none are so marked as moral 



84 EQUALITY. 

and intellectual inequalities. And while these superior 
diversities, already so conspicuous in a natural way, are 
being continually increased by the progress of civiliza- 
tion, the simpler kinds, which most attract the attention 
of superficial observers, are diminished in the same pro- 
portion. 

Since the advent of the democratic polity, an unusual 
amount of attention has been given to the education of 
the people, with the hope, no doubt, of elevating them, 
by that means, to the level of their pretensions. Too 
much cannot be said in favor of education; it deserves 
all the encomiums which have been heaped upon it. But 
what education can do for the people is very little indeed, 
compared with the grand results, and the kind of results, 
expected of it. It can supply no faculty which nature 
has denied, nor enlarge any which she has dwarfed. It 
cannot make Newtons out of numskulls, nor Clays out 
of clowns : with all the education in the world, the dunce 
will still plod on in his native dullness ; and without it, 
genius, like the skylark, will still waft its notes to heaven 
from the furrow in the field. So questionable is the 
benefit which education (so called) confers upon those 
minds to whom nature has been least bountiful, that in 
many cases a deterioration rather than an improvement 
characterizes the result. Nature would thus seem to 
resent man's futile eiforts to disarrange her plans ; for, 
so far from allowing her discrepancies to be diminished, 
and all men and things to be blurred into one undistin- 
guishable mass, the very artifices used for that purpose 
are made, by her contrivance, to increase her disparates, 
and to magnify the varieties in which she delights. For 
while, in a well-regulated society, inferior minds receive 



EQUALITY. 85 

very little advantage from education, and are sometimes 
damaged by it, the amount of development of which the 
highest orders of faculties are susceptible, and which 
they derive from education, is almost incalculable. Were 
there none but common men in it, the world would wait 
long for a statue of Appelles, a play of Shakspeare, a 
composition of Mozart, and then not get them, though 
it were full to repletion of what is commonly called edu- 
cation. Homer composed his grand epic with perhaps 
little or no knowledge of the art of reading and writing. 
Some of the greatest men that ever lived scarcely ever 
saw the inside of a school-house. Of the thousands an- 
nually sent forth from the walls of modern universities, 
rarely does one confer honor on himself or his country. 
The scientific marvels, which are transforming the world, 
are the products of comparatively few great men, most 
of whom get their education pretty much as the bird 
gets its song. Without these rare souls, who cannot be 
prevented from learning, Europe and America would be 
at this day what Africa is, and ever has been, and ever 
will be, with no other but the negro race to trans- 
form it. 

To apply, then, the doctrine of equality to any assem- 
blage of persons thus widely constituted and differently 
developed, is to ignore the most obvious arrangement of 
nature, and to violate the simplest law of natural justice. 
Disparities thus fixed by nature are ineradicable, and it 
is the first duty of society to provide for them; other- 
wise the dogma of equality, which seeks to obliterate 
them, becomes anarchical, and directly hostile to its 
original destination. It remains, moreover, an obstacle 
to progress; no amelioration of any society, whose de- 



86 EQUALITY. 

liberations it sways, can be hoped for while its influence 
lasts. If it be not otherwise extruded from the mind of 
society, then its elimination by revolution is inevitable ; 
for no society can long exist in the state of anarchy 
which its disorganizing tendencies superinduce. As we 
have seen, however, the absolute equality of the whole 
human race, from their very birth, is dogmatically as- 
serted in Mr. Jefferson's Declaration of Independence; 
and this doctrine of perfect equality, without the slight- 
est qualification, has ever since retained its original im- 
portance in the politics of this nation. The raid which 
John Brown made into Virginia not many years ago 
was mainly inspired by this fanatical sentiment. That 
hostile incursion into a peaceable State, at a period of 
profound national tranquillity, was called by John Brown 
and his partisans a "continuation of the war of liberty 
and equality which was begun in '76," and was justified 
by the equality clause in Mr. Jefferson's Declaration of 
Independence. It was the prelude to the present revo- 
lution, in which the doctrine of equality is deeply impli- 
cated. 

During the fervor of the French Revolution — for it 
is still to that epoch of French history we must go (I 
hope it shall be our last visit) to see the working also of 
this democratic principle when run out to its last conse- 
quences — the dogma of equality played so important a 
part in that terrible drama that, for nearly ten years, 
the Sans -Culottes were the virtual masters of the nation. 
When the revolution broke out, the leveling process was 
the first begun, and the last discontinued. The Sans- 
Culottic status was the prescribed social, moral, and 
intellectual standard for the entire population. None 



EQUALITY. 87 

were allowed to ascend above it, and none could descend 
below it. Aristocracy was the highest crime known to 
the Sans-Culottic code: not only the offense was in all 
cases capital, but the bare suspicion of it was punished 
with instant death and confiscation. Even the scientific 
spirit was stigmatized as tending to institute an aris- 
tocracy of knowledge, which was as ofiensive as any 
other species of aristocracy. Many innocent persons 
accordingly had their heads chopped off for no other 
reason than because they were suspected of containing 
a little too much learning. Genius, talents, respecta- 
bility, or moral worth of any kind above the prescribed 
standard, was a sure passport to the inevitable guillo- 
tine. So obnoxious was wealth, or fine clothes, or any 
other distinguishing mark of superiority, that the opu- 
lent and fashionable, to save their lives, affected poverty 
and the blouse, and the red flannel night-cap was seen 
on every head. I have already noticed the narrow 
escape of the French nation, at that epoch, from the 
horrors of agrarianism ; and it was mainly to the 
dogma of equality that the peril was due. 

It is useless to say that all the examples I have quoted 
from the French Revolution were portentous or eccentric 
incidents ; that they were extreme consequences, or ex- 
ceptional cases ; that they occurred at a period of national 
disorganization or national insanity; that that sort of 
thing is now played out, and can never happen again. 
Their legitimate descent from the democratic principles 
is evident and certain. They were logical corollaries 
of the premises whence they flowed. They were the 
natural effects of those doctrines when considered as 
absolute and released from governmental restraints. If 



88 EQUALITY. 

they occurred at a period of national disorganization or 
insanity, it was they that disorganized the nation, or 
deprived it of its reason. Similar causes produce similar 
eifects : as soon as all the conditions favorable to a luxu- 
riant development of the democratic polity are fulfilled 
in this country, that polity cannot fail to re-enact similar 
scenes here. 

The present war affords ample proof of this assertion. 
The events transpiring around me at this moment differ 
but little from the worst scenes of the French Revolu- 
tion. None but they who are spectators of them, and 
have oracular proof of their reality, could believe in 
their existence in the last half of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, and in a Christian nation. Before their actual 
occurrence they would have seemed to us impossible. 
They now indicate that civilization has made but little 
permanent progress in this country. They show how 
easy is a relapse toward barbarism when society is not 
secured by the salutary restraints of government, and 
when fanatical sentiments can take it out of the rules of 
order and consign it to such disorderly courses. It is 
not in times of peace, when men's passions are at rest, 
that we can judge of the soundness of a nation's consti- 
tution : it is periods of disturbance which test the effi- 
cacy of its social principles. "When the fanaticism of 
any number of persons, however considerable, can upset 
government, and in the name of law and under the sanc- 
tion of legal authority perpetrate the most horrid out- 
rages against justice and humanity, it is evident that 
that government was never settled upon a solid basis, 
and that its political principles have mortally corrupted 
the minds of its subjects. Modern civilization, among 



EQUALITY. 89 

the most advanced nations of Europe, has marked its 
progress, not only hy ameliorating the forms of civil 
government. and diminishing the causes of active hos- 
tilities, but also, in an especial manner, by softening the 
ruder features of war when hostilities do occur. Under 
these benign reforms, war never inflicts its cruelties on 
private citizens. The property and persons of non- 
belligerents and the general harmony of society are as 
much respected by an invading army as if it were a 
time of peace. 

The war now raging in this country has gone back 
several centuries for the method of its conduct; and the 
remark is equally applicable to both sides. The pas- 
sions of hatred and revenge seem to animate the two 
governments in a large degree, and to descend with 
increasing bitterness through the officers to the common 
soldiers. These savage and ferocious sentiments are 
participated in by large majorities of the people of both 
sections. On the part of one of the belligerents, the 
war has been used as a pretext for confiscating a larger 
amount of private property than was ever before known 
in the history of the world; and a more reckless disre- 
gard of the commonest rights of humanity and of the 
higher claims of civilization was never exhibited even 
in the days of remotest barbarism. In the last analysis, 
these base passions and cruel practices are clearly refer- 
able to the demoralizing tendencies of our social prin- 
ciples. The fanaticism inspired by those principles, and 
not the exigencies of the war, as pretended, was the 
real cause of the Emancipation Proclamation, which has 
robbed non-belligerents of such an enormous amount of 
private property. The war, too, has called forth many 

9 



90 EQUALITY. 

ostentatious exhibitions of the hatred which has rankled 
so long in the bosoms of the fanatics of the North against 
what thej supposed to be the aristocratical sentiments 
engendered bj slavery in the Southern mind. Their 
animosity seems to have been excited principally by 
envy, and by a hatred, not of slavery, but of slave- 
owners. The possession of so many slaves was fatal 
to that equality which it was the duty of this govern- 
ment to establish. I have seen in Northern newspapers 
letters, purporting to come from the Federal army, de- 
claring that the w^ar must not end until these aristocratical 
pretensions were ''' thrashed'' out of the Southern mind, 
and that domineering people were brought by poverty 
and oppression to a proper sense of their insignificance. 
If we pursue the dogma of equality to its practical 
consequences in this society, we shall discover that it is 
the same monster here it was in the French Revolution; 
and that its offspring in both countries bear a family- 
likeness too striking to be mistaken. We all know the 
prejudice existing here against aristocracy. Though the 
law make it not a punishable offense, it is little less than 
a crime in the estimation of popular opinion; and'' the 
bare imputation of being an aristocrat is enough to con- 
sign the suspected individual to obloquy and ridicule, if 
not to positive hatred and detestation. In spite of this 
prejudice, in no country in the w^orld is the sentiment of 
aristocracy stronger than here; but as yet it is cherished 
in secret, and publicly denied. Already it animates 
private circles, and it is beginning slily to influence 
social relations in many ways too visible to be over- 
looked. It thus manifests itself in society, because it 
exists in human nature, and is equally irrepressible in 



EQUALITY. 91 

both. If it be not recognized formally and regulated 
by legal enactments, it will get itself recognized inform- 
ally and regulated by methods so awkward as to breed 
secret hatreds and ultimately open hostilities. 

Liberty of conscience, from which is derived the dogma 
of equality, implies the most fundamental of all equali- 
ties — the equality of intelligence. But it is precisely in 
the moral and intellectual sphere that the greatest and 
most radical of all inequalities is found to exist. It is 
the difference between virtue and vice, between genius 
and stupidity. The highest specimens of humanity fall 
but "little below the angels," the lowest rise but little 
above the brutes. There is a moral and social, as well 
as a physical law of gravity. The most virtuous and 
intelligent minds naturally gravitate toward the highest 
places in society; and to these places, for the good of 
all and the benefit of society, they are justly entitled. 
It is preposterous to suppose that large masses of de- 
praved men could ever live a great while together with- 
out the stringent bonds of successive gradations, having 
the main governing strength in the apex. This is so 
obviously one of the natural checks that ought to be 
incorporated into every social system, that it is sur- 
prising how it could be deliberately excluded from the 
constitution of any government. The exclusion cannot 
fail to produce social irregularities, particularly where 
the opposite or democratic element is retained by itself 
and reigns alone. Nevertheless, to this exclusion, per- 
manently and systematically, all the democratic dogmas 
are irrevocably compromited. 

Hahit is said to be second nature. A hahit of think- 
ing has so much of first nature in it, that it is a per- 



92 EQUALITY. 

fectly safe foundation for any system we may choose to 
build upon it. The hahit of thinking that "some are 
born to command and others to obey," established most 
of the despotisms of antiquity. Upon the hahit of think- 
ing that "the powers that be are ordained of God," was 
founded the practice of "passive obedience and non- 
resistance;" it also supported the law of "legitimacy," 
by which a certain person, whether he were virtuous or 
vicious, a wise man or a fool, had, by reason of his birth 
alone, and to the utter exclusion of everybody else, the 
undoubted right to govern, and, at his sovereign will and 
pleasure, to take away the lives of his subjects, and to 
do without question or restraint any and every thing else 
he might have a mind to. The hahit of thinking that 
the first-born son had the right to inherit all the family 
honors and property, established the law of primogeni- 
ture, and not only reconciled younger brothers and sis- 
ters to the arrangement, but made them rejoice at and 
glory in the provisions of a law which, while it con- 
signed them to poverty and obscurity, transmitted the 
estate entire to their elder brother. This hahit of think- 
ing has so far displaced what we would call first nature, 
that fathers and mothers have eagerly consigned their 
daughters to the gloomy prison of a convent, and their 
younger sons to the church or army, to insure their celi- 
bacy, that no remnant of the family might remain, but 
the heir, to impair the future integrity of the estate. 
If we go further back to more remote times and nations 
— to ancient India, for instance — we shall find institu- 
tions still more monstrous (to our mode of thinking) 
similarly supported. In short, there is no enormity in 
government or morals which, to a deep-rooted and invet- 



EQUALITY. 93 

erate habit of thinking^ may not seem perfectly natural 
and eminently right and proper. 

When a reaction, whether of a moral or a material 
force, sets in, it seldom stops at that juste milieu^ that 
half-way ground, where alone safety resides. If, in a 
moral sense, it start from one extreme point of absurdity, 
it is almost certain to rush to the opposite extremity 
which is not less absurd. Such has been precisely the 
effect upon the human mind of its emancipation, by the 
doctrine of liberty of conscience and its derivative dog- 
mas, from those antiquated habits of thought^ which 
detained it so long, and perpetrated, in the name of 
"right reason," absurdities which, to our habits of think- 
ing^ seem too monstrous for belief. The reaction, how- 
ever, as in most cases it is so apt to do, has hurried 
forward the human mind into other excesses, different 
indeed in kind, but not at all less in degree. A deep- 
rooted and inveterate habit of thinking that "all men 
are created equal," and that it is impossible to make 
them otherwise, that the people are the legitimate sov- 
ereigns, the only true fountain of all power, and that 
they and they alone are entitled to govern, is now 
gradually establishing another state of things not less 
monstrous and absurd than that which has been aban- 
doned. Entertaining, then, an undisturbed belief in 
their own supremacy and infallibility, in the indefeasi- 
ble equality and liberty of all men, and in the duty of 
society to organize these principles and carry them out 
to their full intent and meaning, the people cannot do 
else than look with extreme loathing and disgust upon 
pretensions of a contrary tendency. All assumptions 
of superiority from any other quarter, and whatever 

9* 



94 EQUALITY. 

tends to limit their authority, are met with suspicions 
and jealousies. They are taught that there is nothing 
more difficult in the management of the affiiirs of a 
nation than of a family: that it is the juggle of keep- 
ing up impositions to blind the eyes of the vulgar, that 
constitutes the intricacy of state: that the mysticism 
of inequality has been the sole cause of all the evils 
attendant upon human nature: that any man in society 
may fill any place in government, and exercise its func- 
tions. Under the influence of these tuitions, and having 
all the political power in their hands by the convenient 
methods of universal suffrage and the ballot-box, they 
admit to public offices none but persons of their own 
caste and their flatterers. Vagabonds and loafers, men 
utterly incapable of managing their own afiairs, are not 
unfrequently intrusted with the mismanagement of the 
afi'airs of the nation. The demagogues are at the same 
time the creatures and the masters of the people. The 
demagogues control the government by feeding the pas- 
sions and prejudices of the multitude, and by gratifying 
their desires. By reason of their representative char- 
acter, of their approximation to the level of the masses, 
of their low moral and intellectual caliber, the dema- 
gogues exclude the best men of the nation from the 
service of the state by usurping those places which ae- 
justly due to the latter. 

This state of things cannot last. The momentum 
which brought society to this condition is necessarily 
progressive. It cannot remain stationary. It must 
obey the original impetus which set it in motion, and 
continue, with an ever-increasing velocity, to proceed 
from bad to worse, until it meets its ruin in its own ex- 



EQUALITY. 95 

tremity. In spite, then, of these complacent notions 
of popular power and equality, the movement of society 
is perpetually widening the breach between the ideas of 
the people and the reality of things, between their social 
theories and their social conditions. Population in- 
creases faster than wealth, and the tendency of wealth 
is to concentrate itself into the fewest number of hands. 
The numerical increase of the poor, therefore, as com- 
pared with the rich, is in the compound ratio of those 
two tendencies; and the interval between poverty and 
wealth, between the poor and the rich, is perpetually 
widening in the same proportion: the rich are ever 
growing richer, and the poor poorer ; the former are 
ever becoming proportionally fewer, and the latter more 
numerous. 

Very soon, therefore, the people will begin to see 
palaces rising around them, while they live in huts. 
They will see men, apparently without labor, surfeited 
with the luxuries of wealth, while they eat the hard 
bread of poverty, earned by the sweat of their brows. 
These, and many other contrasts not less violent, while 
they contradict the people's preconceived notions of 
universal equality and popular sovereignty, cannot fail 
to rouse their indignation, and to direct their hostility 
against what to them will seem an abnormal condition 
, of society too intolerable to be borne. All this time 
their faith in their social theories will in no degree have 
diminished : they will rather have gained strength every 
day. Their efforts, therefore, will be unceasing to con- 
form their social state to their social ideas. They will 
know but too well, by habits of thought contracted from 
infancy, by the lessons of experience acquired at the 



96 EQUALITY. 

ballot-box, bj the teacliings of the demagogues at the 
hustings, by their daily conversations among themselves, 
by the promptings of vanity and conceit never extinct 
in even the lowest natures, that they have the right and 
the poiver, legally or by 7'evolution, to reform in society 
whatever they may consider to be abuses. The pangs 
of present sufferings, the forebodings of future misery, 
the growing inequalities of classes will not be likely to 
diminish their violence, or to moderate their innovations. 
The constitution will be no bar to their reformatory 
action. They have long ago learnt to construe that 
instrument according to their own ideas; and all laws 
which contradict the fundamental principles of absolute 
equality and popular sovereignty, or any other natural 
right, are, by their interpretations of them, ipso facto 
nugatory and of non-effect. Practice must and shall be 
made to agree with precept. They will have already 
seen their favorite dogmas wage successfully one stu- 
pendous war, and, under the flimsy pretext of ''military 
necessity," maintain their supremacy by confiscating an 
incalculable amount of private property, and by reduc- 
ing to their own pecuniary level eight millions of opulent 
proprietors. The habits engendered by that war, con- 
firming their habits of thought, will have famiharized 
them with deeds of spoliation. The burning, destroy- 
ing, appropriating the superfluities of wealth will no 
longer be the "scarecrows" of their imaginations. Tra- 
dition, the fireside tales of those performances, enhanced 
by distance and the embellishments of fancy, will make 
it comparatively easy to reproduce them in some other 
form, and on a scale not less grand. Whenever, there- 
fore, a war of castes shall break out in densely populated 



EQUALITY. 97 

communities here, as sooner or later it is bound to do 
with such a political system as ours, the horrors of the 
French Revolution will at last find a parallel in the 
enormities of this. 

The disturbances which took place in Northern com- 
munities, soon after the declaration of war by Mr. Lin- 
coln, and subsequently the riots in New York, had, it is 
true, nothing of this character in them ; they were not 
occasioned by any hostility to aristocracy. But they 
bear witness to the dangerous social element that is 
gradually maturing in those populous communities ; to 
the intolerant spirit of the rabble when their ideas or 
passions are opposed; and to the merciless character of 
their vengeance when roused. 

To this it may be replied, that such perturbations as 
those referred to are not peculiar to this society : that 
they are of as rare occurrence here as elsewhere: that 
they have happened to other communities as well; and 
are liable to break out in any nation. My answer is, 
not necessarily. They never occur except in nations 
that are dominated by a libertine soldiery or a no less 
libertine democracy. They took place in Rome at 
epochs when the plebeians, and subsequently the Preto- 
rian guards, had the ascendency there ; in Turkey, under 
the domination of the Janizaries; in France, of the 
Sans- Culottes ; and in other nations, upon the sudden 
irruption of democracy, before it could be suppressed. 
But, in this nation, they are a necessary element of its 
social system; and are bound, sooner or later, to break 
forth when occasion or opportunity offers. They are 
inevitable to the natural working of the fundamental 
principles of our society; and though they may be de- 



98 EQUALITY. 

tained long in inactivity, a time will come, with increase 
of population and the growing disparity between wealth 
and numbers, when they will manifest themselves like 
the tornado and the earthquake. 

Already, in the most crowded sections, where society, 
fermented by principles so disorganizing, has thrown off 
an undue proportion of demagogues, social agitations 
have been attempted of the most pernicious description, 
and so far suppressed only by the indifference of popu- 
lar good sense, by the ridicule of the intelligent or 
conservative classes, and by the difficulty of putting 
in motion the lower orders. During these agitations, 
the subjects discussed, the societies organized, and 
the measures proposed clearly indicate the demoralizing 
tendency of the principles engaged. Among the dis- 
turbing elements most active on those occasions was 
the doctrine of equality. Under its inspiration, clubs 
were instituted for the promotion of "Women's Rights," 
the objects of which were to emancipate woman from 
her subordination to man, and to elevate that fragile 
sex to an equality with the lords of creation. Accord- 
ing to the arrangements proposed, she was to enjoy not 
only a domestic but a political equality as well; to be 
released from all the restraints and obligations imposed 
by connubial vows; to choose the fathers of her chil- 
dren, and to have as many fathers for them as she had 
children, if she so desired; to be eligible to all political 
offices; and to vote at all political elections. 

In their many earnest discussions of this subject, 
those social agitators seem to have demonstrated, satis- 
factorily at least to their own minds, the natural equality 
of woman to man, without considering the difference of 



EQUALITY. 99 

her organization, and the different social duties (that of 
maternity, for instance) which that organization imposed 
upon the sex. The ludicrous absurdity of their con- 
templated reform seems never to have disturbed the 
complacency of their thoughts, or to have raised a 
doubt of the practicability of their plans. They do 
not appear to have asked themselves the questions: 
What was to be done with a Speaker of the House, or 
a Presidentess of the Senate, in the seventh month of 
her pregnancy? or a General-in-Chief, who, at the open- 
ing of a campaign, was " doing as well as could be ex- 
pected"? or a Chief Justice with twins? Or, it might not 
unfrequently happen that, at periods of high political 
excitement and closely contested elections, many im- 
portant voters would be "in the straw" and unable to 
attend the polls, or, in their zeal for the cause, might 
go out too soon and bring on serious complaints, to the 
great discomfort of families and the derangement of 
domestic order. 

The institutions of marriage and the family, and the 
rights of property, have been vehemently assailed by 
large numbers of persons known as "Socialists" and 
"Free Lovers." These frantic and licentious persons, 
embracing equal numbers of both sexes, attempted re- 
ductions of their ideas to practice by forming extensive 
organizations for that purpose. So far have these specu- 
lations penetrated into social life, that, as Comte re- 
marks of the democratic period of French society, any 
one is now at liberty in the large communities of the 
North to make an easy merit of the most turbulent pas- 
sions; so that, if such license could last, insatiable 
stomachs might at length get to pride themselves on 
their own voracity. - ■ -^ ^ ^: ~;H^ Q^ 



100 . EQUALITY. 

True, these are but small irregularities, symptomatic 
diseases, appearing on the surface of society, and no 
serious evil has yet arisen from them, as they have hith- 
erto been confined to the large metropolitan cities. But 
they are premonitions of morbid tendencies, shadows 
cast before of coming events; and those seething cal- 
drons, the great commercial capitals, -wherein are com- 
mingled, like the "hell-broth" of Macbeth's witches, 
all the worst elements of our social system, cannot for- 
ever confine the ebullition within their own limits. They 
are legitimate derivatives of the democratic principles, 
and are chiefly valuable as afibrding examples on a small 
scale of events which must take place on a large scale, 
when society is ripe for their development. 

But even if these minor disturbances be regarded as 
examples of failure to pervert the democratic polity to 
purposes of evil, it cannot be denied that the dogma of 
equality has been more fatally successful in another 
direction. Large numbers of persons in this country 
became so transported with the apparent success of the 
democratic polity here, that from being at first only the 
champions of their own rights, they passed at length 
into propagandists, and entertained the project of car- 
rying the democratic faith over the whole earth. They 
made no distinction of races ; all men are created free 
and equal. But before going abroad, they must establish 
the universality of the faith at home, and make it a unit 
here. Four millions of Africans were held in bondage 
in this "land of liberty:" these Africans were their 
brothers and equals. 

It was precisely here the dogma of equality, aided 
by the doctrines of free inquiry and popular sovereignty, 



EQUALITY. 101 

wrought with fatal effect. The ruling majority was at 
the North; the Africans were at the South. No North- 
ern interest was supposed to be compromised by such an 
application of the equality principle. Indeed, the prin- 
ciple, to be consistent, could not refuse to elevate that 
down-trodden race to the level of the Caucasian and of 
liberty at the sacrifice of any interest. The masses, to 
whom the appeal was made, and who controlled the bal- 
lot-box, listened with growing approval. There was law 
and gospel for the doctrine; for, according to the Bible, 
we are all descendants of Adam and Eve; and the new 
Evangel of liberty and politics, the Declaration of In- 
dependence, makes them our equals and free by the 
legacy of birth. Clearly, therefore, we had no more 
right to enslave the Africans than the Africans had to 
enslave us. The burnifig sun of their native clime had 
blackened their skins ; underneath the cuticle, they were, 
like ourselves, Caucasians, and children of Adam. Not 
only a common humanity, but a common parentage, 
united us all. Common justice, therefore, as well as 
common decency, demanded that the common rights of 
humanity be extended to these oppressed brothers and 
sisters. Like ourselves, they had souls to be saved; 
their souls at least were white, if their skins were black. 
In heaven they would be our equals, — why not here? 
In slavery, their intellectual powers were repressed; in 
freedom, what Washingtons and Newtons and Shak- 
speares might not issue from this reviled race! "Was 
not Hannibal," said one speaker, "an African, and 
Scipio Africanus another?" In any case, our flag, 
which was par excellence the banner of liberty, should 
no longer float over four millions of slaves. 

10 



102 EQUALITY. 

Aside from all philanthropic, religious, or metaphys- 
ical considerations, the masses had a direct interest in 
this view of the question. They were laborers, and 
labor itself was degraded by the degradation of their 
brother African colaborers. Nay, more; the laboring 
population was increasing, by immigration and genera- 
tion, at a rapid rate in this country. Within the mem- 
ory of living men, the population had grown from three 
to thirty millions — the laboring portion of that increase 
being disproportionately great. With augmented facili- 
ties for immigration, and an enlarged basis for genera- 
tion, what would it not do within the period of another 
lifetime ! Wages were already being disadvantageously 
influenced by the increasing numbers of laborers. Capi- 
tal was beginning, in this country, as in the overcrowded 
States of Europe, to control atid oppress labor. The 
competition of four millions of slaves was no inconsider- 
able item in the economical view of the question. Eman- 
cipation would speedily remove this competition. Have 
not the negroes, liberated little more than a half century 
ago, entirely disappeared from the Northern States ? 
There is no reason to believe that, unprotected by their 
masters, they would last any longer in the South by the 
side of white laborers. All experience proves that no 
inferior race can long coexist in freedom by the side of 
a superior race. The Indians of this continent were 
unable to endure the presence of the "pale faces," and 
have vanished before them. The natives of the Pacific 
islands are decreasing inversely as the Europeans in- 
crease there. The negro, left to himself, will do like- 
wise, and disappear in the 'same way. In a state of 
slavery in the South, the negroes have multiplied, by 



EQUALITY. 103 

generation, largely in advance of the whites; while, in 
a state of liberty at the North, their numbers have 
diminished almost to the point of extinction. At this 
ratio of increase as slaves, before many generations 
more they will monopolize the best portions of the 
continent. 

This is a specimen of the argument employed by 
fanaticism in defense of universal equality. Bj this 
summary it will be seen how effectually the argument, 
when run out, destroys itself; the premises perish in the 
conclusion, and the heresies of fanaticism are exploded 
by the inexorable laws of statistics. It is difficult to 
reason logically and consistently against the truth : the 
argument sets out to prove the equality of all men, and 
ends by establishing a general inequality of all men; 
for it demonstrates that there are superior and inferior 
races, and that negroes are so well adapted to slavery 
that it is clearly their normal condition, and contains 
the only terms on which they can coexist with the whites 
in this country. The dictates of humanity, therefore, 
as well as the dictates of reason, would seem to authorize 
their continuance in the only state in which their exist- 
ence can be preserved. It will also be seen, by the fore- 
going summary of its arguments, with what rapidity and 
ease this species of fanaticism, beginning in purely phil- 
anthropic motives, glides into calculations of interest 
and self-aggrandizement. 

All vague notions of public good, degenerating into 
an indistinct philanthropy, must succumb at last, as we 
have just seen, to the energetic forces of a highly stimu- 
lated selfishness. A humane desire to emancipate the 
negro, combined with the patriotic purpose of benefiting 



104 EQUALITY. 

the country by substituting free for slave labor, may 
have been the first impelling motive of the abolition 
movement. But a party begun upon those principles, 
and expanding into a controlling majority, would not 
long confine itself to the narrow basis of its first organi- 
zation. In the confidence of power, and consequent 
enlargement of views, benevolent and patriotic designs 
would in time come to be so far displaced by ideas of 
self-interest, that the very worst perversions of which 
the former were capable would be unhesitatingly used 
for the aggrandizement of the latter. 

The social malady must be very serious when all man- 
ner of persons, however inferior their intelligence, and 
however unprepared, are stimulated, in the highest man- 
ner, and from day to day, to cut the knot of the most 
intricate political questions, without any guidance or 
restraint. A licentious freedom of individual minds, 
such as this state of things indicates, is necessarily hos- 
tile to all true social order; for the great political rules 
which should become habitual guides in determining 
problems of that character, cannot be surrendered to 
the capricious decision of an ignorant multitude without 
losing their efiicacy. 

To all those philanthropic, religious, metaphysical, 
and economical views of the abolitionists, the simple 
and obvious reply was, that the Africans were slaves, so 
recognized by the constitution, and that the rights of 
property in them were guaranteed to the owners by the 
most solemn provisions of that instrument. In the view 
of abolitionism, this was a very silly replication, since it 
was opposed to the commonest dictates of philanthropy 
and patriotism, intensified by the strongest motives of 



' EQUALITY. 105 

self-interest; and no constitution was entitled to respect 
which supports such an anomalous and abnormal state 
of society. From the very nature of things, these views 
were necessarily partial and sectional, since they were 
entertained, in a section of our common country where 
no slaves existed, by a set of persons whose interests 
were supposed to be injuriously affected by slavery, in 
opposition to the interests of another section, where 
slavery legally and constitutionally existed. It is clear, 
however, that if those views, partial, sectional, and un- 
constitutional as they might be, should ever come to be 
entertained by a majority of voters, the constitution, in 
the respect of that matter, would be obliged to give way 
to the will of such a majority. From the very nature 
of things again, those views must nece^ssarily, in process 
of time, take possession of a majority of the voters of 
the nation, because the numerical preponderance of the 
voting population was already very large in the section 
where there were no slaves; and the numerical propor- 
tion of the voters of that section whose interests were 
adverse to slavery was largely in advance of the num- 
ber of those who were, to say the most and the least of 
them, indifferent on the subject. This relative position 
of the populations of the two sections, large as was 
already the disproportion of numbers in favor of the 
non-slaveholding section, was not stationary, but the 
preponderance at the North was continually growing 
larger and larger, and the increase was mainly in that 
class which was hostile to the institution of the South. 
It is not alone on the subject of slavery that this ma- 
jority might declare itself in opposition to the constitu- 
tion. There are many other subjects equally calculated 

10* 



106 EQUALITY. 

to call forth similar manifestations. The tariff once 
possessed and exercised this influence, and may do so 
again. Instead of two, the country has now many sec- 
tional divisions, the interests of each differing widely 
from the interests of the others. Sectional and party 
majorities may at any time be hostilely arrayed against 
any one of these, and the constitution be again unable 
to protect the minority. 

Thus it is apparent that the tendency of this govern- 
ment is to run into a government of party ; and, from 
the geographical divisions of the country, the ruling 
party must necessarily be also a sectional party. This 
arrangement would seem to be partial and antisocial 
enough for all the worst purposes of despotism or an- 
archy; but it is not yet the worst: the ruling party 
must also be a class party, and that class must consist 
of the most inferior and least intelligent portion of the 
nation's population; for, under the rule of universal 
suffrage, the majority is unavoidably composed of the 
lowest classes of society, the masses, animated by the 
most knavish, the demagogues. In the long run, a 
government thus constituted cannot be otherwise than 
oppressive. The tyranny of such a majority is, of all 
others, the most odious and intolerable, because irre- 
sponsible. Like the pestilence that walketh in dark- 
ness, we feel its effects, but it is invisible, intangible, 
and no man can question it or call it to account. It 
has no head to be chopped off, like Charles I. or Louis 
XVIII. ; it cannot be captured and imprisoned, like 
Napoleon; or expelled the country, like Louis Philippe. 
It is without a local habitation or a name : it is every- 
where in general, and nowhere in particular. Scat- 



EQUALITY. 107 

tered, like the leaves of the Sibyl, over the broad sur- 
face of the land, its decrees are gathered up at stated 
intervals, and contain the fate of the nation. On those 
occasions, it is the ballot-box that, like the Lion of St. 
Mark's, opens its mysterious jaws; and if the confisca- 
tion of four billions of dollars' worth of property issue 
thence, why — it was the ballot-box that did it. If it 
were possible to conceive of an organized tyranny like 
this as being irremediable, society must perish, and men, 
like brutes, wander in a state of nature. 

This tendency of our government to become a govern- 
ment of party, and of the dominant party to become a 
sectional and class party, has been fully realized. The 
majority which determined the Presidential election of 
1860 was nothing more than a party and sectional or- 
ganization. It had in it nothing of that broad, general, 
and impartial character which should distinguish the 
government of a great nation. Its object was not to 
reconcile conflicting interests, to harmonize political 
diversities, or unite social divergencies and govern all 
with equal justice. The dominant majority was organ- 
ized exclusively at the North; and was composed of a 
class of persons, the most inferior there, whose social 
ideas were so peculiar and so partial that they had 
nothing of general politics in them. The sole purpose 
of one of the constituent elements of that majority was, 
as its name indicates, to actualize or carry into practice 
the abolition sentiments and arguments contained in the 
above summary which I have made of them. It is not 
conceivable that this lawless purpose could ever have 
been peaceably accomplished, since it amounted to an 
assault upon the rights and interests of another large 



108 EQUALITY. 

section of the common country. Nor indeed is it cer- 
tain that, under a wise and judicious system of resist- 
ance, legally and constitutionally conducted, it could 
ever have been accomplished at all. But a wise and 
judicious system of resistance, legally and constitution- 
ally conducted, was precisely such a system of resistance 
as, under the circumstances, was not at all likely to have 
been adopted ; for the same disorganizing principles 
which influenced the conduct of one party equally influ- 
enced the conduct of the opposite party. But this is 
not the place to exhibit the operation of this double 
influence. Hereafter, the conduct of the South, and 
the method of resistance she saw proper to adopt, will 
be noticed in their appropriate place. It will then be 
seen that the democratic principles have directed their 
disorganizing influences with equal force upon both sec- 
tions; and that, until human nature be changed, those 
principles, in their present naked form, are unfit to 
preside over a great and complicated society like this. 

I have now completed the analysis which I proposed 
to make of the democratic polity, by separating its dog- 
mas and treating each by itself. This analysis has 
revealed the theoretical and practical tendency to ex- 
cess which is inherent in each dogma; and it will be 
seen that, when brought together in a state of com- 
bination, so far from counteracting or neutralizing the 
vicious tendencies of each other, their union does in 
reality augment the evil many times over ; for, in point 
of fact, either of those dogmas would be comparatively 
harmless without the other two. I shall next proceed to 
examine the influence which is exercised by the demo- 
cratic polity over society; and this examination I shall 



PUBLIC MORALS. 109 

conduct by decomposing the latter into its diiFerent so- 
cial elements, and showing how each element is affected 
by being brought under the exclusive domination of the 
former. To this end it becomes necessary, first of all, 
to go to the basis of the social system, and examine into 
the nature and extent of the injury, if any, which democ- 
racy may have inflicted upon society. 



III. Public Morals. 



As public morality is the foundation of society, if 
that be rotten, the superstructure cannot be secure. 
The first thing, then, which this examination discloses 
to us, as a peculiar feature of our social system, is the 
unusual number of public offices, and the still larger 
number of persons that, in every community, are hang- 
ing around to fill them. Many of these offices are cre- 
ated for no other purpose than to reward partisan zeal 
at the expense of the public purse. The effect of this 
measure, as unwise as it is wicked, is twofold : it increases 
venality in proportion to the increase of offices; and it 
withdraws from the useful occupations of life an extraor- 
dinary number of persons that otherwise might be em- 
ployed in a manner beneficial to themselves and to 
society, but who, thus converted into vagabonds and 
loafers, become nuisances to themselves and to the com- 
munities they infest. The number of office-seekers bears 
an undue proportion to the number of offices to be filled. 
For every successful applicant there are at least a dozen 
disappointed ones. Society thus becomes filled with 



110 PUBLIC MORALS. 

crowds of discontented individuals, whose disappoint- 
ment must awaken passions anything but favorable to 
public tranquillity. During legislative sessions, manj 
of these office-seekers and ex-office-holders constitute 
themselves "Lobby members," as they are called; there 
are always more such members in the galleries than there 
are legally elected members in the halls of legislation, 
and their business there is nothing else but organized 
corruption. 

Our frequent elections are the peculiar fruits of the 
democratic polity. The pretext for their frequency is 
that the doctrine of accountability may thereby be ren- 
dered as practical and efficacious as possible. It is 
pretended that it is only thus the people are enabled to 
keep a firm hold on the fidelity of their agents. Upon 
the principle that short accounts make long friends, 
public servants are required to give an account of their 
stewardship at short intervals, in order that the people 
may have the opportunity, as often as possible, of pass- 
ing judgment upon their conduct; of continuing them 
in office if their conduct be approved, or discontinuing 
them if disapproved. This reason would be a very suffi- 
cient one if it were always carried out, or even pretty 
generally acted upon.' But these frequent elections, 
whatever may have been the theory of their origin, are 
practically not the least of the social evils of which we 
have to complain. They are indeed the peculiar delight 
of democracy, as it is only by and through them it exer- 
cises its power over society. That polity would be shorn 
of much of its capacity for evil, and B^ociety would be 
much more tranquil, if elections were much less fre- 
quent. As the people are of opinion that the govern- 



PUBLIC MORALS. Ill 

ment is little else than an organ of their will: that it 
was designed mainly to manifest their power: that, in 
short, it is par excellence "the people's government," 
AS contradistinguished from all other governments ante- 
cedent and cotemporaneous ; and as they are taught, 
and do believe, that every man in society has the right 
and the capacity to fill any office in government, they 
think that every man should have his turn at some office 
or other. Hence the doctrine of rotation in office has 
ever been a favorite dogma with the people, and per- 
haps is quite as responsible for the frequency of elec- 
tions as the doctrine of official accountability. In any 
case, whichever doctrine may bear the responsibility, it 
too often happens that public functionaries have scarcely 
had time to learn the A B C of their duties before they 
are displaced by other neophytes, and these again by 
other novices, before any of them could prepare them- 
selves for usefulness in their offices. 

The political hatreds and heats of contest engendered 
at these repeated elections by party rancors, cannot fail 
to pass into personal and private animosities. Many a 
quarrel that had no other origin has been quenched in 
blood; and the peace of families and the harmony of 
neighborhoods have been destroyed forever by political 
diflferences of not the slightest moment to society. These 
demoralizing effects are witnessed in the daily course of 
our political conflicts, which are correctly spoken of as 
a kind of warfare; for actual war cannot be more de- 
structive materially than they in a moral point of view. 
In the fury of these conflicts, the most conscientious 
men habitually upbraid each other with wickedness and 
folly. Not only individuals, but different sections of 



112 PUBLIC MORALS. 

the country, hostilely arrayed, denounce each other in 
epithets the most vile that can be invented by persons 
ignorant of everything but the use of vulgar language. 
If one party succeed by an unusual amount, or some 
extraordinary method, of corruption, the opposing party, 
after heaping upon its rival the most unmeasured abuse 
for such practices, is sure, at a subsequent election, to 
profit by the lesson, and so far follow the example as to 
exceed if possible the corruption by which it was pre- 
viously defeated. 

On every serious occasion, at the polls and at public 
gatherings, doctrines the most opposite are maintained 
with equal warmth by persons equally entitled to con- 
fidence ; and in the heat of debate, no extremity is too 
absurd for their conclusions to be pushed. The greatest 
strain a principle will bear is always put upon it, not 
only in argument, but in practice. Pot-house politicians, 
usually a contemptuous epithet in other countries, are 
here too often the actual legislators; for that class of 
persons are usually the most successful canvassers, and 
carry a majority of elections. Wealth, learning, and 
respectability are almost entirely excluded from legis- 
lative seats: the cry of "aristocrat" generally sufifices 
to defeat any man possessing a claim to either of those 
qualifications. In the halls of legislation, log-rolling, 
as it is called, is the necessary consequence of such 
legislators : there is scarcely any local or personal legis- 
lation, however glaringly corrupt, but can be secured 
upon this reciprocity principle. " You help me, and I'll 
help you," is a maxim of political wisdom soon learnt; 
and he is the best politician and the most successful 
statesman who succeeds best with it. Another perni- 



PUBLIC MORALS. 113 

cious consequence of this anomalous state of things is 
the multiplication of laws beyond all human necessities: 
many of them become dead letters at the moment of 
their enactment, and few have ever any attention paid 
to them. If one of these parvenu legislators can point 
his constituents to a law which he has originated and 
carried through, he passes for a Solon, and his return 
at the next election is rendered almost certain. Every 
"fellow," therefore, must have his law to parade, or he 
is "nobody," and may expect to be retired by his con- 
stituents to the shades of private life. 

Among the many evil practices peculiar to our social 
system, the bestowal of official patronage, as rewards 
for partisan services, stands pre-eminent. This patron- 
age begins at the highest office of the government, and 
descends to the lowest. The people are not slow to 
imitate this example ; they practice the same thing at 
the ballot-box with a rigor that is absolutely merciless. 
Patronage is reduced to a system: it is used as the 
patrimony of party : every office is a largess, and must 
be compensated by service to party. The practice has 
proceeded to such lengths that none but party hacks 
can hope for office or patronage; and these are bestowed, 
not for any fitness on the part of recipients, but rather 
for their unfitness, since they are notoriously, in a ma- 
jority of cases, the most idle, worthless, and venal of 
the nation's population. This inquisition for spoils 
takes place on every change of rulers, and at all pri- 
mary elections. Viewed in the extent to which it is 
carried here, it constitutes a species of depravity known 
to no other government in the world. In all govern- 
ments, more or less patronage is necessarily bestowed 

11 



114 PUBLIC MORALS. 

by the Chief Magistrate, and other public functionaries 
holding under him; but in the exaggerated form in 
which it obtains here, the habit is peculiar to our social 
system. In England there are many offices which are 
now held for life by persons who stand aloof from the 
strife of parties. These functionaries supply to the 
State a valuable body of servants who remain unchanged 
while cabinet after cabinet is formed and dissolved, who 
instruct every successive minister in his duties, and with 
whom it is the most sacred point of honor to give true 
information, sincere advice, and strenuous assistance to 
their superior for the time being. To the experience, 
the ability, and the fidelity of this class of men is to be 
attributed the ease and safety with which the direction 
of affairs has been many times transferred from tories 
to whigs, and from whigs to tories.* In this country, 
no such class of officials exist. As often as the admin- 
istration is changed, an endless crowd of retainers is 
liable to be ejected from office, and to be succeeded by 
a set of new hands entirely ignorant of official duties, 
and who are liable to be ejected in their turn before 
they have half learned their business. Servility and 
corruption, ignorance and incapacity, in every depart- 
ment of government, must be the inevitable effects of 
such a system. 

The practice, whether at primary elections or by office- 
holders possessing official patronage, amounts to a pro- 
scription for opinion's sake, which, while it deprives the 
country of its best and ablest citizens, drives into the 
ranks of the dominant party all the base and venal, who 

'■^ See Macaulay's History of England. 



PUBLIC MORALS. 115 

stickle at no dirty work to earn the rewards due to party 
attachment. In proportion as the vile and corrupt are 
drawn into a party, good men are forced out of it, or 
reduced to inactivity; for if they remain they cannot 
consent to co-operate with such colleagues. As from 
the nature of our social system the dominant party 
must in time, if it does not already, constitute the gov- 
ernment, it follows that the nation is in constant danger 
of being subjected to the rule of the very scum of its 
population. 

"To the victors belong the spoils," has long been a 
recognized political maxim of the first importance. This 
principle of claiming a monopoly of office by right of 
conquest, and of filling all offices, at primary elections, 
by party organizations and for party aggrandizement, 
must change, has already changed, the purpose of gov- 
ernment from its true destination. The tendency of 
such a system is to elevate party claims above the 
demands of patriotism; to make party attachments 
stronger than love of country ; to postpone the common 
weal to personal interests; and to convert the govern- 
ment into a joint-stock concern for the benefit of indi- 
viduals who control it. 

Its evil effects cannot, and do not, stop there. Con- 
sequences so deleterious to the public interests, arising 
from an organization of so partial a nature, cannot be 
confined to government; they react upon the individuals 
composing the party; they obliterate, in fact, the very 
spirit and genius of individuality; they erase the lines 
and marks which distinguish one individual from an- 
other; they destroy everything like independence of 
thought and action ; all men must surrender their own 



116 PUBLIC MORALS. 

convictions, in order to subserve the interests of party ; 
they must put on the harness of party, and work in 
party traces; they must conform their thoughts and 
actions, not to the dictates of their own reason, but to 
the ''usages of party," which is a Procrustea7i bed all 
must fit at the cost of a mutilation at which human 
nature shudders: in short, they owe fealty, first of all, 
to party, which is their patron; and this primary al- 
legiance leaves little room for, if it supersede not alto- 
gether, loyalty to country; and proscription is the iron 
rod with which all this party discipline is enforced. 

It is not only the individuals who are the active mem- 
bers or servile dependents of party that are thus in- 
juriously affected. It is by these methods the majority 
is procured; and the majority rules not only govern- 
ment but society, not only public life but private life. 
Such a system, either directly or through an overpow- 
ering fear of public opi7iion, which it begets, controls 
the citizen in his minutest affairs. It regulates his 
public actions, and dictates his fireside enjoyments; it 
fetters his speech, and forces opinion itself. All spring 
and elasticity of thought is destroyed; originality dis- 
appears. No one dares whisper his thoughts, till he 
learns whether they are pleasing to the sovereign ma- 
jority. An invisible p)uhlic is the master, whose crush- 
ing tyranny extends to every relation of life. There is 
no resistance, for its victims are emasculated by fear. 
It is treason to doubt the wisdom of the majority. 

But the evil consequences of such a system go even 
further yet, and invade every department of social life. 
It is the nature of any system to be consistent with 
itself. If it be established on false principles, it tends 
unceasingly to develop all the pernicious efi'ects of those 



PUBLIC MORALS. 117 

principles, and forces everything around it to aid in the 
development. Under such social conditions, therefore, 
good men cease to avail themselves of their political 
privileges; they retire in disgust to the obscurity of 
private life; they shrink with horror from paying the 
slightest attention to public affairs ; they shun the polls 
as places of contamination ; they regard the ballot-box 
as a solemn mockery, used only to cloak the designs of 
a party whose leaders have already predetermined the 
results to be obtained from it, and elected all their can- 
didates beforehand; they look upon popular elections 
as mere selfish contests for office; and accordingly they 
abandon the government to the scramble of the bold, 
the daring, and the desperate. 

Here, then, is formed a party organization, held to- 
gether by the strongest bands which the vicious part of 
human nature can supply; that is, by the mercenary 
ties of self-interest, by the fears of the timid, and by a 
discipline so severe that nothing but revolution or uni- 
versal anarchy can break through it. The tyranny of 
such a system, while it lasts, surpasses the worst des- 
potism on earth; for it crushes the soul and withers the 
heart — all that is not mechanical is exterminated. The 
most galling thraldom ever known, it assumes the most 
dangerous form which modern times can supply; it 
borrows the badges of freedom, and, under the shape 
of government by the majority, it imperils all our indi- 
vidual rights, and threatens the very existence of free- 
dom itself. But it cannot endure. With corruption 
and intimidation as its only guarantees, it must de- 
moralize the nation to the point of actual dissolution, 
or revolution must snatch it from destruction. Distrust 
^ 11* 



118 PUBLIC MORALS. 

and jealousy, fear and hatred, will conspire against it; 
and civil war, if nothing else will, must at last square 
the account by ruin or by rescue. 

When this party organization shall have become sec- 
tional, as, sooner or later, it is bound to do in a country 
of such magnitude and varied interests as this, and has 
seized into its hands the reins of government, and is 
exercising all its party instincts and party appliances, 
upon what hypothesis would it be possible to predicate 
the safety of the Union, except upon the supposition 
that human nature, in other sections, had abdicated its 
manhood, or surrendered its passions to abject fear or 
to the wasting influence of corruption? 

As for freedom of elections^ — the very life-blood of 
popular governments, — that, like many other free things 
in this free country, is a myth — a pleasant delusion, 
which, in our distress, it is well enough to cherish — but 
no such thing exists. I speak not now of the interfer- 
ence of government by its army regulations, but of the 
ordinary working of the system in times of profound 
peace. A man cannot be reckoned very free in his 
election, when a caucus nomination has left him no 
choice of candidates. A few irresponsible individuals, 
with no authority for doing so but the w^arrant of party, 
have already predetermined his vote, without consulting 
his wishes; or perhaps, worse still, have presented for 
his acceptance a man whom, of all others, he would 
most repudiate, and he is free to vote or not. Nor is 
even this measure of freedom always allowed him : if he 
eat the bread of dependence, his choice sometimes lies 
between eating no bread at all or voting as directed. 
This species of servitude is not always confined to the 



PUBLIC MORALS. 119 

poor and needy, or to the humble laborer. Lawyers, 
physicians, mechanics, all men who are dependent upon 
public patronage for a livelihood, have sometimes been 
reached, through their professions, by this all-pervading 
proscription of party, and forced to submit to party 
drill, to take their politics according to prescription, 
and vote to order. A well-disciplined corps of office- 
holders, scattered all over the country, in every State, 
county, town, and neighborhood, acting with incredible 
zeal and union of purpose, use their official stations and 
their offices to very little purpose other than that of in- 
fluencing elections, of all grades, from the highest to 
the lowest. They advise, exhort, solicit friends and 
partisans to greater exertions in the cause of party; 
they wheedle, cajole, intimidate, resort to briberies direct 
and indirect; everything is done, which patronage and 
power can do, to influence elections, not only in the 
General government, but in all State governments. No 
office is too high, none too low, to escape their wondrous 
activity and their marvelous ubiquity. But the greatest 
levers for controlling elections are party organizations. 
In this country of office-seekers and office-holders, there 
are few men who have not political aspirations of their 
own. This unfortunate ambition degrades the aspirants 
at once to the level of the most abject servility. They 
become the slaves of party, and must obey, without 
question, its behests. Its nominations, however per- 
sonally objectionable, command their unqualified sup- 
port. They are perpetually called upon to electioneer 
and vote for men against whom, perhaps, their very 
gorge rises in opposition ; but they must holt the devil 
himself, if required to do so ; and it is the boast of many 



120 PUBLIC MORALS. 

that thej are fully up to this standard of party drill, 
and could readily fulfill such a requirement. It is 
scarcely conceivable that such a state of things could 
last for any length of time : its tendency is to go from 
bad to worse, and must kill or be cured. 

Nor is it alone freedom of elections which is so fatally 
disturbed by official patronage and party organizations. 
The Freedom of the Press is no less injuriously 
aifected by the same deleterious influences. A Free 
Press is very justly considered to be the Palladium of 
a people's liberties. So highly were its services in this 
respect rated, that it was the only profession which 
enjoyed the high distinction of being expressly pro- 
tected by constitutional enactments. In despotic gov- 
ernments, the press is always effectually muzzled, and 
speaks only, if it speak at all, at the dictation of the 
despot. But it may well be asked, if a purchased press 
is more free than a fettered one? It certainly makes 
little difference whether the manacles be put on by fear 
or by favor. A pensioned press can no more speak the 
truth than an enslaved one. The latter may be silent, 
and thus become a sort of negative institution, calcu- 
lated to do no sort of good. But a press, hired to lie 
and mislead, to slander and traduce, becomes a positive 
evil, calculated to do infinite mischief. Of the myriad 
political presses in this country, large numbers of them 
are the servile organs of party, looking alone to party 
for support, devoted to its interests, speaking only and 
always at its dictation, and ready to suppress the truth 
or pervert it, or lie direct to advance the cause of party. 
This is the most melancholy prostitution of which the 
democratic principles have yet been guilty. It is a cor- 



PUBLIC MORALS. 121 

ruption of tlie very fountain of light and knowledge ; a 
demoralization of the intelligence of the nation. The 
effusion of blood and tears which will be required to 
wash out the stains of this pollution, and to restore 
humanity and society to their lost integrity, is beyond 
the power of human calculation. The earnest endeavors 
of many generations will be needed to repair the dam- 
age; and, in the mean time, we can but weep over the 
mistakes of the past, and invoke an early restoration 
in the future. 

In the midst of so much party rancor, of such per- 
sonal and sectional hatreds, of such impure motives 
and corrupt practices, all deep and steady convictions 
must be rendered totally impossible; and no true polit- 
ical morality can be hoped for, by even the most san- 
guine disciple of democracy, while this state of things 
lasts. The inevitable result of such a chronic epidemic 
is the gradual destruction of the public morale; while 
at the same time the seeds are planted of future strifes, 
the subjects of which will be debated at the point of the 
sword and at the cannon's mouth. Precisely such a 
bloody exchange of ideas is that now being discussed, 
in tones of thunder, over the broad surface of the land. 
Whichever way, then, we look at it, poUtically, morally, 
or, as we shall hereafter see, religiously. War lies like 
the inevitable excess at the extremity of each view; 
and the democratic principles, as established in the 
frame of this society, must be regarded as possessing 
no capacity for social organization. 



122 PRIVATE MORALS. 



PRIVATE MORALS. 

If such lias been the spread of public demoralization, 
private morality has fared little better. The latter 
could only be reached through the destruction of the 
former: and now, that barrier being broken through, 
the dissolving action threatens domestic, and even per- 
sonal morality, which is the necessary foundation of 
every other. In private life, natural sentiment has far 
more influence than in public relations. In all that 
concerns domestic and personal affairs men think not 
so much as they/ee?; and their conduct is much less 
dependent on current opinions than is the case in pub- 
lic matters. While politics and public opinion, by their 
ceaseless action and reaction upon each other, produce 
whirlwinds of passion which are so destructive of public 
morals, those home interests which cluster about the 
domestic hearth are protected from the pitiless peltings 
of the storm without by a kind of household Lares^ the 
genius loci, which render sacred the roof under which 
they are sheltered. The fanaticism of politics is little 
less rabid than the fanaticism of religion. Some of the 
blackest crimes recorded in history are due to ill-regu- 
lated public spirit. Men daily do for their party, for 
their favorite political schemes, what no inducement on 
earth could tempt them to do for their individual in- 
terests. In their ordinary business relations, they would 
shudder at the bare thought of committing a fraud which 
they would perpetrate with exultation on the ballot-box. 
Their reputation would be ruined forever in the eyes of 
their fellow-men by the mere suspicion of a crime com- 



PRIVATE MORALS. 123 

mitted in private life, which, in public relations, would 
win the applause of a party or of a whole community. 
In politics, the end too often justifies the means; and 
men are apt to overlook the turpitude of the one in the 
excellence of the other. It is more than probable that 
all the wealth of France could not have bribed Robes- 
pierre to murder for hire one of the thousands whom he 
murdered from motives of philanthropy. These evil pas- 
sions and evil practices are seldom carried by men into 
their family circles : they are usually shaken off at their 
doors, with the dirt from their feet; or left in the halls, 
with their overcoats; and they enter the sanctuaries, 
where are enshrined their household gods, with pure 
hearts overflowing with tenderness and love. Private 
morality, therefore, is so far removed from the influence 
of political institutions, that the principles of the latter 
HHiSt be insidious indeed if they can gain an entrance 
so far into the human heart as to undermine all those 
guards which nature has supplied to human conduct. 

But the intrusion of individual analysis into those 
sacred precincts, and the corrosive influence of an un- 
limited freedom of discussion, could not be prevented 
by any of those safeguards which nature has thrown 
around the sanctuary of private life. The supremacy 
of the individual conscience has greatly aided this in- 
trusion; and the dogma of universal equality has sug- 
gested such license of sentiment and action as, under 
better auspices, would cause the pure soul to shudder 
with horror, and would paint the modest cheek with 
blushes. There have not been wanting pretended re- 
formers who have even denied the propriety of a sub- 
jugation of the passions to reason; and have proposed, 



124 PRIVATE MORALS. 

as a fundamental dogma of their regenerated morality, 
the systematic dominion of the former, which they have 
striven, not to restrain, but to excite by the strongest 
stimulants.* They have argued that the passions are 
the strongest instincts of human nature, and the most 
powerful incentives of human action; that the former 
cannot be weakened without at the same time under- 
mining the vigor of the latter; that therefore the pas- 
sions, in all their impetuosity, were given for great, 
wise, and good purposes; and that, so far from emas- 
culating humanity, and reducing it to a cold and pas- 
sionless machine by their systematic suppression, or by 
their subordination to the mechanical influences of an 
impersonal reason, the passions ought rather to be en- 
couraged by a habitual indulgence of even their wildest 
desires. In the gratification of those desires, it was 
further argued that the individual conscience must be 
left as the sole judge and arbiter of the motives influ- 
encing individual conduct; and that it is the worst of 
tyrannies for one person, or for any number of persons, 
to impose upon others their conceptions of right and 
wrong: that one person is as much entitled to his opin- 
ions as another or as any number of others : that, as 
all have been left free to choose their own religious and 
philosophical ideas, so, in like manner, all ought to be 
left to an equally free choice of their code of moral 
rules. It will thus be seen that political corruption and 
moral corruption have, so far, ran together in parallel 
lines ; and that this doctrine is in exact conformity with 
the right of individual judgment, first asserted by Mr. 

* See Comte's Positive Philosophy. 



PRIVATE MORALS. 125 

Jefferson, then repeated by President Jackson, and acted 
on by South Carolina, and again repeated and re-en- 
acted, until, descending through many minor channels, 
public and private, it finally contributed its quota to 
the swelling tide of causes which culminated in actual 
revolution. Guided by the rules of this moral code, 
the numberless isms which, under the name of social 
reforms, have for years past ruffled the surface of North- 
ern societies, have nearly all of them attacked some 
cherished institution of private life, which was directly 
compromised by an abrading discussion which brought 
into question, without the possibility of solution, the 
commonest duties of everyday life. Some of these have 
already been mentioned out of their place ; but a repe- 
tition of them will be pardoned for the sake-t)f regularity. 
; The desire of sexual intercourse is doubtless the 
strongest instinct of our animal nature: its licentious 
gratification, if universally indulged by legal sanction, 
would rdnder social order a moral impossibility. With 
what reverence, then, ought we to regard an institution 
which so directs this passion that, instead of the disor- 
der its license would occasion, the utmost harmony arises 
from its regulated satisfaction ! The institution of Mar- 
riage, at the same time that it satisfies and disciplines 
the most impetuous of our instinctive passions, lays the 
foundation of another institution no less important. The 
Family is at once the basis of the social spirit and the 
germ of the social organization. Families become tribes, 
and tribes become nations; and the national unity finds 
its type in the family. So sacred has this institution 
ever been held, and so natural is the arrangement, that, 
amid the fiercest revolutionary tumults, the Family/ has 

12 



126 PRIVATE MORALS. 

always been respected. But it was not to be hoped 
that, while the democratic spirit was attacking every- 
thing else, it should allow these institutions to escape. 
Social equality, run out to its last extravagances, has 
assailed both the above institutions ; and Marriage and 
the Family had doubtlessly, long ere since, been endan- 
gered by serious innovations, if public decency and pri- 
vate good sense had not, up to this time, interposed to 
weaken the pernicious effects of democratic excesses. It 
was even proposed to take from parents the guidance 
and almost the acquaintance of their children, in order 
to consign them to the care of society; and to take 
from children the inheritance of their parents' property 
accumulated on their behalf. In a moral and domestic 
point of view, these propositions were as monstrous as 
the proposals of another set of social reformers, who 
advised the abolition of money and the recurrence to a 
state of barter; the destruction of large cities with the 
view to a restoration of rural innocence ; and a fixed 
rate of wages, and the same rate for every kind of labor. 
All these recommendations, private and public, had for 
their object the same end, to wit, the reduction of 
society and humanity to a uniform system of the most 
perfect equality. When, to assaults upon institutions 
such as Marriage and the Family, we add the attacks of 
the communists upon the rights of property, and of the 
abolitionists upon the domestic institution of slavery, 
with the view of subjecting them also, as all things else, 
to the inexorable law of equality, such frenzy cannot 
be regarded other than the most alarming symptom of 
a tendency to social disorganization. It is no answer 
to these charges to say that they are nothing else but 



PRIVATE MORALS. 12T 

social eccentricities and individual absurdities, which 
popular good sense is quite sufficient to restrain; and 
that the best method to deal with them is to leave them, 
as heretofore, to the wise reserve of public intelligence, 
or to the inertia of public indifference, without imposing 
on society the trouble of providing against them. The 
sad experience we are now undergoing teaches us better 
than that. These tendencies are genuine derivatives of 
the democratic principles, and as such are necessarily 
progressive as long as those principles are left dominant 
in society. However feeble may be their first tentative 
efibrts, they will never intermit their energy until they 
have destroyed either themselves or society by their 
excesses. 

So little attention has been paid to these vagaries, in 
communities where they were most rife, that their cor- 
rection has been abandoned to the ridicule of a few 
humorists, and to the laughter of good-natured people 
who had little or nothing to lose by their successes. But 
it was too much to expect that these social reformations, 
as they were called, at first privately begun, should 
always or even long confine their activity to the narrow 
sphere of their origin. The organizations to which 
they led afforded facilities to political interference too 
tempting to be resisted. Accordingly, many of them 
descended to the political arena, and, by adding their 
passions to the fury of politics, not only complicated but 
intensified the strife. It is by that means they are 
enabled to vent their disorganizing influences, and bring 
about social disturbances which endanger the existence 
of society. Such was the origin and history of the 
Abolition Association; and from that Association has 



128 RELIGION. 

sprung the occasion of our present difficulties. Still do 
we travel in a vicious circle ; and start from what point 
we will, arrive at last to this inevitable conclusion. Or 
rather, such is the nature of the disturbing elements of 
our social organization, that they make everything they 
touch converge to one point, which is the necessary turn 
of all social disturbances — Wak. 

INFLUENCE OF DEMOCRACY ON RELIGION. 

Meligion, too, no less than public and private moral- 
ity, has suifered from the dissolving action of social 
principles so disorganizing. The attrition of contro- 
versial debates, like that authorized by absolute liberty 
of conscience and the right of free individual inquiry, 
has worn away the very foundation of true piety, by 
planting in the hearts of men religious hatred, (of all 
hatreds the most devilish and infernal,) the rivalries of 
sects, the anger of church quarrels, the animosities of 
doctrinal controversies, the spirit of persecution and all 
uncharitableness, instead of the spirit of peace on earth 
and good-will to men. How can there be genuine re- 
ligion without harmony, and how can there be harmony 
amid the confusion arising from setting up the indi- 
vidual conscience as the sole standard and arbiter of 
religious truth? A boundless inquiry which leads to no 
decision, and an endless discussion which eats into the 
heart and corrodes the soul, are not calculated to pro- 
duce that tolerance which is the essence of religion, or 
that benevolence which Christ taught from the mount, 
or that forgiveness which he breathed from the cross, or 
that peace of mind which passes understanding. 



RELIGION. 129 

The questions which theology perpetually agitates 
are, by their very nature, indemonstrable. They are 
the absolute, the essence of things, or some notion which 
shall be ultimate. But the absolute is inaccessible to 
human inquiry. Absolute notions admit neither of proof 
nor of reputation. The essence of things cannot be un- 
derstood by man ; and when he requires it of his reason, 
he asks more than his reason can give. Man's mind is 
neither absolute nor infinite, and to expect from it solu- 
tions that are so, is to overlook the immutable conditions 
of human nature. Yet there is nothing for which men 
are more ready to fly at each other's throats and tear 
out each other's hearts than for difierences of opinion 
on these impracticable questions, whose discussion can 
generate no durable convictions nor obtain universal 
assent. The sole vital principle of Christianity is char- 
ity, self-sacrifice, peace, and the forgiveness of injuries. 
All other questions are but fragments of old, exploded 
theologies which, floating, like waifs on the current of 
time, have gathered about it only to obscure it. These 
antiquated dogmas, dislodged by the friction of ages 
from system after system, have gravitated toward the 
living nucleus of Christianity, like the dust of old iron 
around the magnet's point; and, while they do not con- 
stitute any part of its real life, have contrived to attract 
the lion's share of attention, and to perpetrate all the 
evils committed in its name. In every age, in every 
form which religion assumes, in every theological sys- 
tem, these same old questions are forever reproduced: 
their discussion is perpetually renewed: again and again 
they reappear to disturb the peace of society, and to set 
man in deadly feud with his brother man; and they are 

12* 



130 RELIGION. 

left as indeterminate at last as at first, in order appar- 
ently that they may continue to distract the future as 
they have distracted the past and the present. 

Such were the questions that were set free by the 
destruction of the Catholic unity, and were thrown, like 
so many apples of discord, upon the world, to be dis- 
cussed by every man to his heart's content. Upon the 
occurrence of that memorable event. Protestantism filled 
Europe with religious dogmas, with religious sects, with 
religious wars — wars which desolated the nations and 
drenched their soil with fratricidal blood. As numerous 
as are those sects in Europe, they bear no proportion to 
their numbers in this country, according to population. 
Comte did not overstate the case when he said there 
were, in the United States, hundreds of religious sects, 
radically discordant, and incessantly parting off into 
opinions which are little more than individual, which it 
is impossible to classify, and which are already becoming 
implicated with innumerable political differences. These 
sects are so animated with the old spirit of controversial 
theology, that they have come to regard each other with 
a pious hatred which nothing but polemical divinity could 
suggest. With a morality rather below than above the 
average standard, they condemn to perdition all who are 
without the pale of their peculiar system of salvation. 
The absolute dogmas of their profession, fruitful as they 
are of debate, are yet insufiicient to detain them within 
the sphere of religion. The misty regions of metaphys- 
ics and political ethics have peculiar charms for their 
divines. Many of the preachers declaim little else than 
party politics from their pulpits: by mixing up theolog- 
ical and social problems, they give to the latter the hue 



RELIGION. 131 

and coloring of the former; and thus it is that, in this 
country, political questions are endowed with the dan- 
gerous quality of breeding discords and animosities, 
which nothing else but their association with theology 
could ever give them. There are few reformatory 
schemes, however absurd and mischievous they may be, 
with which this disputatious class of persons is not in 
some way connected. Breach of unity, division, sepa- 
ration, contention, strife, — these are the motives from 
which they derive their inspiration. Its wondrous ac- 
tivity no longer absorbed in the great work of decom- 
posing the Catholic unity. Protestantism seems to have 
turned loose its disorganizing dogmas upon itself and 
upon society. To set bounds to our passions by reason, 
to our errors by truth, and to our schisms by charity, — 
these are the least of its thoughts. Its mission is disso- 
lution, disunion, disorganization. The passions of man- 
kind are the great instruments of its power; these it 
stimulates by the most inflammatory declamations. The 
awful terrors of r-eliglon, and not the sweet ministrations 
of divine love, are the themes of its oratory. Its god is 
a god of wrath, of vengeance, of hatred, and persecution: 
he sits upon a gloomy throne, with the bolts of Jove in 
his hands, and a fiery hell yawning at his feet. With 
these terrors, the poor victims are driven from one 
excess to another: fear, and the cruelties which fear 
inspires, drive all sentiments of love and union and 
harmony from their hearts. The ministers of such a 
faith are religious demagogues who rule their disciples 
by their baser passions. Like the political demagogues, 
they aim at power, influence; and popularity is the food 
on which they subsist. The spirit of party animates 



132 heligion. 

their words and deeds. To be the founder of a sect is 
the height of their ambition. The more schismatic a 
doctrine is, the more efficacious it is in accomplishing 
their selfish ends. It was the spirit of sectarianism that 
snapped the first cord by which the States were bound 
together. Religious fanaticism took the initiative in the 
unhallowed work of dissolution. A separation of the 
Union was inaugurated by a separation of the churches, 
North and South. The Catholic unity itself seems not 
to have been more an object of hatred to Protestantism 
than the Federal Union of the States; and its disorgan- 
izing tendencies were as mercilessly directed toward the 
latter as they had ever been against the former. It de- 
nounced the Federal Union as a league with hell and a 
compact with the devil. All the infernal enginery of 
its frightful creed was brought to bear with ruinous effect 
against its continuance. The vengeance of Heaven and 
the pains and penalties of eternal damnation were in- 
voked against its supporters. All those bitter hatreds, 
so native and so peculiar to its gloomy religion, and 
which it knows so well how to rouse, were called forth, 
like so many evil spirits, to breed discord and disunion. 
Its Pharisaical purity, which is more cruel and proscrip- 
tive than the blackest iniquity of earth, was foremost in 
the van of disturbing causes. It is worthy of notice 
that those Protestant sects which are most schismatic, 
which are most intensely Protestant, which no organiza- 
tion can retain, and which are continually sloughing ofi" 
into isolated parties as individual as their extreme selfish- 
ness can make them, — those were the sects which were 
most active in promoting the work of decomposition 
which has at last been accomplished. They left no 



STATE RTGIITS. 133 

means untried to sow dissension in the minds of men — 
goodly fields indeed for religious culture, but the worst 
husbandry which religion ever practiced. They preached 
treason. They exhorted rebellion. They allied them- 
selves with whatever political or social reforms were most 
likely to create dissidencies. It was the preachers, not 
of these sects alone, but of most other Protestant sects, 
who took in hand the abolition doctrine, and made it a 
religious thesis; and, under that banner, it was they, 
more than all other agencies combined, that contributed 
to precipitate the present crisis. 



IV. State Rights. 

It now remains to consider the influence of the demo- 
cratic doctrines on international relations^ and see how 
they affect the action of the individual States toward the 
general government. It seems to me that, in this con- 
nection, they are not less disorganizing than in the 
case of individuals. They will be found, I think, on 
very slight examination, to have given rise to the idea 
of national independence, which is but another name 
for national isolation. In this country the same thing 
is called State sovereignty, whence is derived the doc- 
trine of State rights, which has played so important a 
part in the political history of this nation, and which 
has contributed its quota to the present complication of 
our national affairs. To understand aright this doc- 
trine, and to comprehend clearly its influence on Amer- 
ican politics, it will be necessary to trace it to its Euro- 



134 STATE EIGHTS. 

pean origin, and connect it with the rise of the democratic 
polity in the sixteenth century. The role it has enacted 
on the political stage of America will be found to differ 
very little from its performance in the mother country. 

Perhaps the most natural, certainly the most useful, 
function of the papal power was that from the exercise 
of which was derived the unity which was imparted to 
the civilization of the Christian era. During the long 
period of its reign, the Catholic Church maintained a 
regulating authority over the principalities of Christen- 
dom, which extended not only to their spiritual but to 
their temporal interests as well. It was solely by this 
means that all Europe was banded together in one great 
family of nations, and an intellectual convergence estab- 
lished, of which the present European civilization is the 
last and highest expression. Instead of a Greek civili- 
zation, and a Roman civilization, and a variety of other 
civilizations, — which diversity of civilizations was the 
fatal idiosyncrasy of the Greco-Roman epoch, — Europe 
has now one civilization, which, from its singleness of 
design and unity of development, is fast harmonizing 
the moral discrepancies of the world. This beneficent 
arrangement — brought about by the stern exercise of a 
power deemed at the time outrageously oppressive — 
promises to unite the human race in one grand political 
combination, wherein will still be preserved national in- 
dividualities, to the pa7'tial exclusion at least of those 
international hostilities which spring from the radical 
contrarieties of discrepant races, intensified and madly 
directed against each other by the social prejudices of a 
different development or a different civilization. 

When the papal authority was politically annulled, 



STATE RIGHTS. 135 

the dissolution of European order followed spontaneously 
from the principle of liberty of conscience. The work 
of decomposition once begun, there seemed to be no end 
to the process. The nations wheeled off into separate 
orbits; owned no common center of attraction; asserted 
their absolute independence of all external sovereignty; 
nor would allow the least outside interference from any 
quarter. Then began the doctrine of national isolation, 
and mutual non-intervention, so rigidly and jealously 
enforced up to this hour. Then began also the deso- 
lating wars which, for more than two hundred years, 
depopulated Europe and retarded so fatally her national 
prosperity. There was no power resident on the earth 
that could interpose its authority or good offices to arrest 
these suicidal conflicts; and the combatants were only 
parted by mutual exhaustion. Religion shared the same 
disorganization: from the bosom of Protestantism issued 
innumerable Christian sects, as radically discordant as 
the nations, whose wars they aggravated, and added 
their own peculiar strifes to the general uproar. 

Luckily for the fortunes of Europe at this crisis of 
her fate, a compensating movement had already set in, 
some two hundred years before, which had steadily pro- 
gressed, and was still progressing, at the expense of 
feudalism and the Free Cities. That system yielded 
itself a prey to royalty, and was gradually absorbed 
into the great empires that rose upon its ruins. Thus 
while European order was being destroyed, and the 
nations were without co-ordination and without unity, a 
recomposition of a different kind was going on, Avhich so 
aggrandized the nations and occupied their attention 
that the former process was rendered comparatively 
harmless. 



136 STATE RIGHTS. 

But now, while all the material agencies, so active in 
this age, are daily assimilating the nations more and 
more, and preparing them for broader and more regular 
associations, this spirit of national isolation, if allowed 
to continue and be carried out to its utmost latitude, 
would return mankind to the condition of the middle 
ages. It is only by a growing concentration of political 
action that the increasing anarchy of the time can be 
arrested. For this purpose, a subordination of the sec- 
ondary to the principal political centers is needed. But 
the tendency of national independence or national isola- 
tion is toward the greatest possible distribution of cen- 
ters; and if the tendency be unrestricted, the process 
would be carried on until the ruinous dispersion would 
so far dissipate all political co-ordination that a com- 
plete dislocation of society would ensue, the decomposi- 
tions of feudalisms would be repeated, and the wars of 
antiquity would be renewed. 

I do not pretend to say that it is even possible for 
such a condition of things ever to recur. Happily the 
nature of modern civilization saves us from the danger; 
and history never repeats itself, or turns back in its old 
channels. I am only designating the tendency of those 
principles, and pointing out the difificulties toward which 
they will precipitate society unawares, unless they be 
checked by the introduction of some countervailing prin- 
ciple which will balance without destroying them. 

So congenial with the military spirit is the democratic 
polity, that any pretext will serve it for indulging its 
warlike propensities. The first direct efi'ects of the 
revolutionary movement begun under its auspices, were 
the almost interminable wars which, during that epoch, 



STATE RIGHTS. 137 

desolated Europe, and extruded from the nations all 
political co-ordination. Proof of this warlike tendency 
is seen, even at this day, in the respect paid by the 
common people to the memory of Napoleon Bonaparte, 
who, of all men, wasted the greatest amount of power 
in efforts to restore the military system. It was during 
the progress of this enormous expenditure of strength, 
so wastefully applied, that the nations of Europe at last 
saw the dangers to be apprehended from the dogmas of 
independence and isolation, which they had so greedily 
adopted from the start. But so jealous were these 
dogmas, and so strong wasHhe tendency to isolation, 
that the continental nations could scarcely be bribed 
by the subsidies of England to coalesce for their own 
protection. If it had not been for the policy of non- 
intervention, and the absence of every principle of polit- 
ical order by which some sort of European unity could 
be established, the French nation, under Napoleon Bona- 
parte, never could have plunged the world into such dis- 
astrous wars, nor have threatened the obliteration of 
national boundaries on the continent. As it was, the 
political map of Europe was, at one time, in danger of 
being so altered that the military genius of a single 
individual seemed not inadequate to the task of effacing 
the work of near two thousand years. The danger, in- 
deed, seems not to have passed entirely away yet. Such 
a catastrophe is by no means improbable, even at this 
day. The uneasiness of the nations at every movement 
of France, and particularly at the restoration of the 
Napoleonic dynasty, is evidence that some such fears 
are entertained. It was to avert these dangers, and to 
restore some sort of co-ordination, some sort of Euro- 

13 



138 STATE RIGHTS. 

pean order or confederation, some regulating authority, 
or centralized force, that the five principal powers en- 
tered into that singular league, of which we have since 
heard so much, known as the Holy Alliance. 

In this country, the same tendency to independence 
and isolation manifested itself at a very early period. 
The dogma of State sovereignty was warmly advocated, 
and was recognized with little opposition at the very 
inception of the government ; and the doctrine of State 
rights has ever since contributed not a little to the polit- 
ical disturbances of the nation. 

The spirit of State sovereignty, as manifested in this 
country, is identical with the spirit which, after the dis- 
solution of the papal authority, separated the nations 
of Europe into isolated States. This isolation was so 
unnatural, so abnormal, so lawless, that it was unreason- 
able to suppose so many independent States could co- 
exist by the side of each other without conflicts. The 
nations of Christendom, clustered together in Europe, 
belong to a single system of civilization. The abroga- 
tion of the papal power left no centripetal force to that 
civilization. It was like withdrawing the sun from the 
center of the solar system. No doubt the government 
of the Vatican had ceased to answer the purpose which 
it was so well calculated to subserve at the beginning, 
and that its removal had become a work of imperious 
necessity. But the first consequence of its abrogation 
was a wild confusion which threw the difierent members 
of the system, like so many orbless planets, into col- 
lisions which, for a time, seemed to threaten their ex- 
istence. It turned out in the end, however, as we have 
just seen, that those very collisions which, at the mo- 



I 



STATE RIGHTS. 139 

ment, appeared to be so disastrous, were the means of 
developing the hidden unity which all the time lay be- 
neath the differences presented by the actual spectacle 
of Europe in that hour of confusion. And thus, out 
of the chaos and universal anarchy in which Europe 
was enveloped, arose the first feeble beginning of a 
European order, a common center of attraction, around 
which all the nations of Christendom are destined to 
gravitate, each revolving in an orbit of its own, obeying 
one impulse, moving steadily to one end, which is yet 
unknown, and which no nation has yet reached. In Eu- 
rope, the occasions which led to the abrogation of the 
papal power were the crushing weight of its despotism, 
the severity of its unity, and the frightful abuses of its 
authority. In America, everything is reversed: the 
causes which are likely to result in the total or partial 
destruction of State sovereignty and its derivative. State 
rights, are the absence of a sufficient gravitating power 
in the central government, the want of unity enough, 
the ruinous dispersion of political force caused by so 
many heterogeneous sovereignties, and the growing 
abuses of too many unrestricted State rights. Europe 
had to contend against the despotism of a too stringent 
unity. The United States has to contend against the 
despotism of too much license, of a lawless and ruinous 
diversity. It was the democratic principles, in their 
Protestant or religious form, which, in Europe, abolished 
the unity of Catholicism, and brought on the dissolution 
of European order which ensued. It was the same 
principles, in their political form, which, in the United 
States, laid the foundation of those democratic dissipa- 
tions which have resulted in a dissolution of the Federal 



140 STATE RIGHTS. 

Union. In all probability, the latter country will have 
to undergo calamities not greatly dissimilar or greatly 
inferior to those experienced by the former, in order to 
procure such a co-operation of the States as will suffice 
for the development of a yOung, growing, and uniform 
civilization. In any case, such a co-ordination will have 
to be procured, let it cost what it will. 

Theoretically, the federative system appears to be 
the most simple of all forms of government; .but in 
practice, it has ever been found the most complex, the 
most difficult of establishment, and the least capable of 
being rendered efficient. The system, as established in 
this country, consists in allowing each State to remain 
entirely sovereign and independent within its own limits; 
to leave to it all that portion of government which can 
reside there, or which it can exercise; and to take from 
it only so much of sovereignty as is indispensable to a 
general society, in order to carry it to the center of this 
larger society, and there to embody it under the form 
of a central government. In this removal of jurisdic- 
tion from the States to the General government, the 
least possible amount of power is conceded by the 
States, and only this in cases of absolute necessity. 
The difficulty in this species of government consists in 
reconciling the amount of independence, or of local 
liberty, which is left in the States, with the amount of 
general order or of general submission, which in cer- 
tain cases is supposed to have been conceded to the 
central government.* 

It is evident from this statement that here is a system 

* See Guizot's History of Civilization in Europe. 



STATE RIGHTS. 141 

which requires the most advanced stage of civilization 
of which we can conceive. To render it efficient and 
durable, the greatest amount of intelligence, of intel- 
lectual discipline, a thorough subordination of the pas- 
sions to reason, an enlightened will, and a high sense 
of public duty are peremptorily demanded. The reason 
is plain enough. Nothing can be more conflicting than 
two sovereignties existing in the same system. The 
arrangement, indeed, involves a contradiction of terms, 
and presupposes an absurdity. There can no more be 
two sovereignties in one nation, than there can be two 
suns in one system, or two Supreme Beings in one uni- 
verse. The meaning of sovereignty is supreine power. 
If one thing be supreme., there can be nothing else 
above it, or its equal. If the States be sovereign, the 
General government cannot be so. If, on the other 
hand, the States part with the smallest possible degree 
of power, and acknowledge obedience to any other 
authority, they are no longer sovereign or independent. 
Where one sovereignty, so called, limits another pre- 
tended sovereignty, neither is sovereign. Neverthe- 
less, each of these pretentious sovereignties will assert 
its authority, because it has the na7ne, and attempt to 
make practical the idea contained in the word sov- 
ereignty, as against the other or opposing power. The 
verbal imposture helps to magnify the real difficulties of 
the case, which are sufficiently great without it. If to 
these sovereignties we add the sovereignty of the people 
and the 8up>reme autliority of constitutions, we have a 
system of antagonisms, and not of reciprocating op- 
posites such as we find in nature. To neutralize these 
antagonisms we have only a voluntary obedience, which 

13* 



142 STATE RIGHTS. 

must be rendered by so many parties that the chances 
of a universal or even a general concurrence are almost 
infinitely diminished. Hence the necessity of those 
endless reconciliations and mutual concessions which 
have procured for our system the prenomen of a ^''gov- 
ernment of compromises.'' In one sense the vocable is 
a happy one, because so many compromises are needed 
that there is never a final adjustment, and we must go 
on compromising and readjusting to the end of the 
chapter. With a government so complex and embrac- 
ing so many antagonistic elements, it would be wonder- 
ful indeed if, amid the almost infinite variety of interests 
implicated in a large society like this, some question 
should not arise, sooner or later, which would refuse to 
be compromised, and which, adding itself, like the last 
feather, to all the other causes of disturbance, should 
not succeed in breaking down a system already burdened 
beyond its strength. The danger is more or less im- 
minent according as the state of ci-vilization is more or 
less advanced. If the nation were restricted to a choice 
population, with a high degree of enlightenment, a strong 
sense of public duty, of mutual forbearance and self- 
sacrifice for the sake of general order, such a govern- 
ment might last and succeed well Because, where a 
voluntary surrender of individual liberty is concerned, 
and no adequate means of coercion arc provided, the 
will of man and his free choice must concur in the estab- 
lishment and maintenance of the system more than in 
any other. But where the state of civilization is a low 
one, and the government is confided to an ignorant mul- 
titude, who are more influenced by passion than reason, 
the chances of collision are so greatly multiplied that 



STATE RIGHTS. 143 

nothing short of a miracle could procure a long con- 
tinuance of such a system. 

The federative system is not a new form of govern- 
ment, or peculiar to the United States alone. It is not 
a first experiment, and we are not left in the dark as to 
its probable action and future destiny. There is at least 
one example so nearly resembling our own case that we 
may accept it as an illustration of the system generally, 
and of what is likely to be its fate here. 

It was precisely this kind of government which feu- 
dalism attempted to establish in Europe from the tenth 
to the thirteenth century; and which failed there for 
the same reasons it is likely to fail here. The principles 
it rested upon were identical with those on which is 
based the federativ,e system of the United States. The 
barons, or great proprietors, claimed to exercise abso- 
lute sovereignty each within his own domain, and afi'ected 
to yield to the suzerain, or to the general assembly of 
barons, as much power as would suflSce to establish a 
central government for purposes of general order.* The 
power thus conceded was, like that conceded by the 
States to the Federal government, of the smallest pos- 
sible degree; nor was that power ever allowed to be 
used against themselves without dispute. If a baron 
was displeased with a decision, he refused to concur in 
it, and perhaps called in force to resist it. "Force, in- 
deed," says Guizot, "was the only guarantee of right 
under the feudal system, if force can be called a guar- 
antee. Every law continually had recourse to force to 
make itself respected or acknowledged. No institutions 

* Sec Gnizot's History of Civilization in Europe. 



144 STATE RIGHTS. 

succeeded under it. This was so perfectly felt that in- 
stitutions were scarcely ever applied to." The baronial 
courts succeeded no better than our Federal courts. If 
a judgment Avas adverse to a party, and he felt himself 
in a position to resist successfully, the decision could 
only be enforced by the strong arm; and war generally 
ensued. It will be seen at a glance how impossible it 
was to establish permanently a system like this in a 
world of ignorance and brute passions such as existed 
at that epoch. As society could not endure in the frag- 
mentary condition into which feudalism had divided it, 
and no general order could be established, no law of the 
general government be executed, and no guarantee given 
but that of force, society must perish or feudalism be 
destroyed. The latter was accordingly absorbed into 
the great European empires existing at this day. But 
it was not without a long series of the most cruel and 
bloody wars ever waged on the earth, that the feudal 
system was finally destroyed, and monarchy was left 
without a rival or an enemy in Europe. 

Being in antagonism with ancient order, to eliminate 
which it was instituted, "the tendency of democracy 
is to represent all government as being the enemy of 
society, and the duty of society to be to keep up a per- 
petual suspicion and vigilance, restricting the activity 
of government more and more, in order to guard against 
its encroachments, so as to reduce it at length to mere 
functions of police, in no way participating in the 
supreme direction of collective action or social develop- 
ment." An application of this idea in all its complete- 
ness has been made by the States to the Federal gov- 
ernment. The least degree of power has been doled 



STATE RIGHTS. 145 

out by the former to the latter; and even that little has 
been thought too much, and many efforts have been 
made to abridge it. In the estimation of State sov- 
ereignty, the Federal government should be little else 
than a sort of fiscal agent, to collect the public money 
and disburse it at its dictation; to form treaties with 
foreign powers, without entangling alliances with any; 
to guard well the commerce of the States; extend the 
frontiers of the nation, — all under its surveillance, and 
on the sole condition of its approval. To do this, no 
standing army worthy the name was allowed to exist, 
for fear it might be turned against the rights of the 
States. The navy, though respectable in itself, was 
efficient for little else than to absorb very successfully 
five to ten millions of money annually. The distribu- 
tion of offices, and the disbursement of the national 
funds, in equal proportions to the different sections and 
States, constituted themes of perpetual controversy. 
To dwarf the proportions of the Federal government 
and to render it as contemptible as possible, salaries 
scarcely sufficient for a decent support were meted out 
to the highest officers. Everything served as a pretext 
to call upon the government to give an account of its 
stewardship, that it might never lose the sense of its 
accountability to its thirty odd masters; and the poor 
thing was badgered and harassed almost out of its 
life. 

All political problems of moment which have come 
up for solution since the beginning of the national ex- 
istence, have been mixed up with the doctrine of State 
rights. That disturbing principle has intruded itself 
into all elections which have most agitated the country 



146 STATE RIGHTS. 

during the last half century, and has intensified their 
fury by its own jealousies. The great questions of 
Tariif, National Bank, Internal Improvements by the 
General government, derived from it whatever political 
rancor they possessed, and the decisions of them were 
mainly influenced by its extraordinary energy no less 
than by its arguments. Its spirit has been to the last 
degree captious, exacting, and aggressive. It assumed 
the right to nullify laws of Congress; to interpret the 
constitution according to its own understanding, which, 
of course, was according to its own interests or preju- 
dices ; and to disregard or respect decisions of the Fed- 
eral courts, according as those decisions thwarted or 
favored their own peculiar views. 

This spirit was not peculiar to South Carolina alone, 
or to any particular State or set of States. However 
the motives might differ, and the arguments be varied, 
any State, or set of States, was sure to appeal to its 
own sovereignty whenever its necessities or its interests 
might seem to require it. Massachusetts, who was deeply 
interested in a protective tariff, blamed South Carolina 
for nullifying a law of Congress on that subject, and 
denounced the doctrine of nullification as a political 
heresy. . When her own passions were roused on a dif- 
ferent subject, in which South Carolina was interested, 
the heresy becomes orthodoxy in her own case, and her 
allegiance to a higher law impelled her to the vortex of 
nullification. Thus, between State rights and higher 
laws, the Federal government was fast becoming a vir- 
tual nullity; the dogma of State sovereignty culminated; 
and anarchy was rapidly taking the place of order. Like 
the feudal barons, the States, in their relations with the 



NULLIFICATION. 147 

General government, were beginning to consult only their 
own interests or consciences ; and like feudalism, the 
independence is likely to perish in its own lawlessness. 

The foregoing statement is sufficient to betray the 
complexity of the federative system, and the diflSculty, 
if not impossibility, in the present state of civilization, 
of maintaining for any length of time a form of govern- 
ment so difficult of reduction to practice. The same 
statement will also serve to reveal the intricacy of the 
political problems which, by the terms of our social sys- 
tem, are removed from the jurisdiction of the choicest 
intellects, specially prepared by previous training for 
that purpose, and consigned to the variable and arbi- 
trary decisions of an ignorant and incompetent multi- 
tude. And, finally, it will show that such a form of 
government, while it is sterile of order or of any reliable 
guarantees, is most fertile of demagogues who, confed- 
erate with the masses, and supplied with the boundless 
resources which the social system affords, could not fail, 
some time or other, to initiate a catastrophe like the one 
we are now witnessing. 

NULLIFICATION. 

It may be objected that the doctrines of State sover- 
eignty and State rigJits^ and all the collateral inferences 
flowing from them, arc not authorized by the premises 
from which they are professedly drawn; that they are, 
in fact, nothing but the sophistries of politics : false de- 
ductions from sound principles: the captious arguments 
of disordered minds : fallacies employed by unprincipled 
demagogues for their own selfish ends ; and that the 



148 NULLIFICATION. 

form of government ought not to be held responsible 
for the evil consequences they have been made to bring 
upon the country. 

I do not think so. I shall not defend the demagogues 
from any charge that may be brought against them. 
That they are capable of any perversions, authorized or 
unauthorized, and have contributed their quota to the 
ruin of the country, is but too manifest. I would, if I 
could, consign them, without benefit of clergy, to the 
limbo of lost things, and there end their transgressions. 
But I believe that the theory of State sovereignty, and 
all its consequences, good or bad, even to this war, are 
fairly deducible from the principles of democracy: that 
they are logical corollaries flowing directly from the 
foundation and structure of the Federal government; 
and that the Federal constitution, its antecedents, the 
method of its formation, the principles of which it is 
composed, and the manner of its adoption, are answer- 
able, not only for the demagogues, but for all the iniqui- 
ties they have perpetrated. 

A vigorous analysis will reduce the real origin of this 
war to a controversy which was begun in the convention 
which formed the Federal constitution, and which was 
bequeathed as a legacy, along with the constitution 
itself, to subsequent times. In accepting the constitu- 
tion, we accepted the quarrel it raised; and are now 
terminating both together in the only way quarrels are 
wont to be ended. Stated in precise terms, the subject 
of that controversy was: Whether the governmeijt, about 
to be formed, should be a strojig government, of a gov- 
ernment of limited poiuers only ? 

It is not my intention to reopen this controversy by 



NULLIFICATION. • 149 

renewing a debate which has already been of so exhaust- 
ive a character. Like all political debates in this "free 
country," with their boundless latitude of inquiry, the 
discussion of this subject, while it exhausted the argu- 
ments 'pro and con.^ and still repeated itself, seemed des- 
tined never to determine anything, or to come to a term- 
ination itself. The exasperation of mind consequent 
upon such endless indecision could not fail, sooner or 
later, to find a solution of the problems in dispute by a 
resort to brute force. The transferrence of the discus- 
sion, however, to the mouth of the cannon, does not 
obviate the necessity of knowing precisely w^hat it is we 
arc fighting about. An exact knowledge of this fact, 
on the contrary, might help us to a speedier decision 
than would otherwise be reached. 

It would be next to impossible to suggest a new argu- 
ment on either side of this question ; and to repeat those 
which have been employed again and again ad nauseam^ 
and to so little purpose, would be a work of supereroga- 
tion. Indeed, it is now a mere matter of history, and 
not of argument at all. All I shall do, therefore, will 
be to state the history of the case, announce the conclu- 
sions of arguments, and announce them in such manner 
that no other demonstration shall be needed but the bare 
statement of them. Any further verifications which may 
be required can easily be found lying about all over the 
legislative, judicial, and political literature of the last 
two or three generations. It strikes me, however, that 
these intellectual exuviae of an age not yet passed be- 
long already to an extinct order of politics, and will 
hereafter possess very little interest for any one but the 
philosopliic hi&toiiuu or the curious antiquarian. They 

U 



150 NULLIFICATION. 

were great in their day and generation, however, and 
were the products of the best minds of the country, the 
intellectual giants of that epoch, as great perhaps as the 
greatest of any age or nation. I shall repeat none but 
the conclusions of the choicest of those intellects : if 
they support not my opinions, then my opinions must 
fall to the ground. 

It is immensely difficult to generalize, within the com- 
pass of a few pages, the details of a voluminous and 
complicated history like this, and, render them at the 
same time intelligible and veracious. Still more diffi- 
cult is it to present them in the captivating form of a 
drama, preserving all the dramatic unities, showing the 
end contained, as it were, in the beginning, and the 
beginning developing in the end, without losing the 
thread which runs through all the intermediate parts 
and connects them together. Nevertheless, such a nar- 
rative, appearing in a work like this, where but few 
pages can be spared to it, must be done up in that way, 
or be let alone. I deem it essential to a right under- 
standing of my subject, to take some notice of this part 
of our political history; and therefore, hit or miss, must 
make the attempt to incorporate it here in a form suffi- 
ciently concise as not to occupy too much space, and 
sufficiently comprehensive as that nothing material shall 
be left out. 

No doubt a very strong government would have re- 
sulted from the labors of the convention, if the inclin- 
ation of its members had been alone consulted. A 
majority of that assembly was well inclined to a much 
more imposing form of government than was ultimately 
adopted. But the patriotism of that body triumphed 



NULLIFICATION. 151 

over its prejudices. The question finally resolved itself 
into, not "what is best," but ''what is attainable." The 
reason of this was, that no less than nine of the thir- 
teen States were required for the adoption of the con- 
stitution. 

Now, it could not but happen that, in a country of 
such magnitude, a geographical line would sooner or 
later be drawn, on one side or other of which the numer- 
ical majority would preponderate, and an interest be 
found, or created, capable of being fostered by partial 
legislation. This, indeed, was what had already taken 
place. Near the center of the proposed Union, a line 
of demarkation, even at that early day, was traced be- 
tween two clashing interests, whose rival claims were 
disturbing the harmony of the convention and threat- 
ening a disastrous termination to its labors. That line, 
running east and west, existed then just where it does 
now. The journal of the convention testifies of the 
struggle between those opposing interests. All over 
its face, we find evidences of their mutual efibrts to 
adjust the basis of representation in such a manner that 
each would have the most weight on its own side of this 
great fulcrum, on which the lever of power was to work. 
Very soon, the necessity of a compromise became ap- 
parent to all, or no constitution, no general government, 
no Union would be established ; but things must remain 
as they were, in their loose order, under the old Con- 
federation. Indeed, so antagonistic was become the con- 
flicting interests that were distracting the convention, 
that any stronger government was despaired of. A 
proposition was accordingly made to retain the old Con- 
federacy, and amend its articles with additional grants 



152 NULLTFTCATTOX. 

of power. But this offer was rejected, and the plan of 
a national government was reconsidered. It was then 
conceded on all hands, that unless an adjustment of the 
balance of power on some equitable principle, which 
favored neither section to the prejudice of the other, 
was come at, it was clear that the approbation of nine 
out of the thirteen States could not be procured for the 
adoption of the constitution. Accordingly such a com- 
promise was attempted, and was thought to have been 
secured. But this hostility continually broke out afresh, 
wherever the contending interests of the two sections and 
the sovereignty of the States were in the least concerned. 
At this juncture, no party prenomens had been adopt- 
ed on either side. The rival factions seem not even to, 
have given to each other nicknames, a custom which is 
usually practiced on such occasions. But deducing their 
titles from their principles, or rather from their meas- 
ures, their most appropriate designations would be Cen- 
tralists and Anticentralists. The prevailing party will 
always choose its own name; and w^hile it selects for 
itself the most popular appellative it can find, it gener- 
ally fixes on the other any invidious or reproachful 
appellation it can invent. The adoption of the consti- 
tution w^as considered as a triumph of the Centralists, 
inasmuch as the extremists of the other party were 
rather opposed than otherwise to any other government 
than that of the old Confederacy, from the inconven- 
iences of which the country was now trying to escape. 
Elated by this event, the Central party no sooner found 
itself in the ascendant, than it assumed the popular 
name of Federal, denouncing its adversary as the Anti- 
federal party. The latter, all the time, complained 



NULLIFICATION. 153 

that tliey were wronged in this. They said their adver- 
saries desired consolidation,, while they wished to estab- 
lish a league^ {foediis,) and were, therefore, the only 
true Federalists. But they protested in vain. Their 
opponents insisted that the constitution established by 
them was a t7'ue league, and the 07ili/ practicable league, 
and that they who had opposed its adoption were dis- 
unionists, opposed to ani/ league, and, therefore, Anti- 
federalists ; and so the name stuck to them. By-and-by, 
the Anticentral party, as I shall continue to call it, 
acquired so much popular favor as to be allowed to 
take a name of its own choosing; whereupon it called 
itself the Republican party. The name of Federalist, 
having been rendered odious by the unpopular adminis- 
tration of the elder Adams, the Centralists now attempted 
to get rid of it, by calling themselves National Repub- 
licans, which was the most appropriate, indeed the only 
appropriate name that party ever bore; but their adver- 
saries continued to fling at them, on all occasions, the 
disgraced name of Federalist as a term of reproach, and 
as indeed the dirtiest thing that came to hand. The 
Anticentral party, having borne the name of Republican 
for more than a quarter of a century, at last, after the 
election of General Jackson, who came in under the 
State-Rights' or Anticentral banner, discarded that ap- 
pellation as not sufficiently indicative of their real senti- 
ments, and assumed one which they thought was more 
accurately descriptive of their principles, and at the 
same time most likely to captivate the popular heart: 
they were henceforth known as the Democratic party. 
Tlieir opponents again followed their example: as the 
name of National Republican had been dishonored by 

14* 



154 XULLTFICATIOX. 

the administration of the younger Adams, as the name 
of Federal had been, a quarter of a century before, by 
his father, the ehler Adams, the Centralists adopted the 
name of Whigs, for no other reason than because it was 
borne by the successful party during the Revolution, 
and was still held in high esteem. This name, it was 
thought, would exactly balance, in the popular heart, 
the name of Democrat, which the Anticentralists had 
taken, and which proved to be the most attractive cog- 
nomen ever borne by any party in this country. But 
the name of Whig did not suffice to win political battles 
against the popular cause. Again defeated and broken 
to pieces under that appellation, the Central party was, 
for a long time, without any rallying name. Portions of 
the disrupted party gathered together under the denom- 
ination of Native Americans, and were called, derisively, 
Know-Nothings : in return, they nicknamed their adver- 
saries Loco-Focoes. But the name of Native American, 
and the principles it covered, identified them too closely 
with the hateful measures of the elder Adams's adminis- 
tration, and they slowly melted away under that appel- 
lative. In the mean time, other fragments of the broken 
party, gathering recruits from stragglers in every direc- 
tion, gradually reunited under the designation which the 
Anticentralists, after bearing it with honor and success 
during more than a quarter of a century, had at last 
discarded for the more popular one of Democrat. It 
was, then, under the honored and successful name of 
Republicans that the last agglomeration of the dispersed 
Centralists, made up now of the "All-Sorts," chose to 
renew their battles ; the extreme wing of the party being 
known by the name of Black Republicans, or Abolition- 



XULLTFICATTON. lof) 

ists. Having won a decisive victory under this denom- 
ination, and broken up, not only the Anticentral or 
Democratic party, but the Union itself, names have 
again virtually changed into Unionists and Secession- 
ists, which is the nearest approximation yet made to the 
names I have given to the two parties in the convention. 
In the matter of names, therefore, the two parties are 
likely to end where they began; and, in another conven- 
tion, fight their last great battle under the banners of 
Centralism and Anticentralism. 

I have thus, in limine^ gone rapidly through the his- 
tory of party names, for two reasons: first, in order 
to identify the two parties respectively under all their 
changes of nomenclature; second, in order to obviate 
the necessity of again interrupting the narrative of facts 
by frequent recurrences to this branch of the history. 
So that now nothing remains but to trace, with equal 
rapidity, the history of facts as illustrative of the motives 
of the two parties, and of the quarrel which was first 
sprung in the convention and continued to this day. 

But before proceeding to this history it will first of 
all be necessary to state succinctly and distinctly what 
was the real question at issue in the convention. The 
great trouble was, the difficulty of preserving the bal- 
ance of power between the Northern and Southern sec- 
tions of the country. Hence the danger of establishing 
a common legislature, w^th any but very limited powers. 
Northern members foresaw that the preponderance of 
population would be largely in their favor : that the 
balance of power, therefore, would be on their side; and 
that, in order to render that power available to Northern 
interests, the government must be strengthened, and 



156 NULLIFICATION. 

Congress rendered, like the Parliament of Great Britain, 
omnipotent, or as nearly so as possible. Southern mem- 
bers were quite aware of all this, and sought to defeat 
the scheme of the Centralists by weakening the General 
government, restricting the powers of Congress, and 
strengthening the rights of the States. Hence the prog- 
ress of the quarrel to that point where a compromise was 
deemed necessary, and was thought to have been secured ; 
but the controversy always returned upon the conven- 
tion, whenever sectional interests or the rights of the 
States were involved. 

As no method of coercion seems to have been devised, 
or proposed, or even thought of, all the rights claimed 
by the States were conceded, in order to predispose them 
to adopt the constitution. No evidence is to be found 
in the proceedings of the convention, in its debates, in 
any argument, suggestion, or clause of the constitution, 
from which it can be inferred that the convention, or 
any member of it, regarded the several States in any 
other light than as being perfectly free to accept or 
reject the constitution at its sovereign will and pleasure. 
In the event of a rejection by one or more of them, no 
forcible measure was proposed to meet the emergency. 
If nine of the States adopted the constitution, then the 
Union was to embrace those nine. If the others could 
not be persuaded to come in, they were free to stay out. 
If nine States did not accept, then the labors of the con- 
vention were to go for nothing. It is clear therefore 
that, at that early day, the convention, and every mem- 
ber of it, and everybody else, considered each State as 
at liberty to adopt the constitution or not, as it saw fit. 
If this constitutes sovereignty, then the States were uni- 



NULLIFICATIOX. 157 

versally believed at that time to be sovereign. Whether 
or not they lost their sovereignty at a later day, is 
another question. 

The next evidence we have of the animus of the con- 
vention, and of its opinion of the nature of the govern- 
ment it had formed, is to be found in the method pro- 
vided for the adoption of the constitution. It was to be 
adopted, not by a majority of all the people of all the 
States, taken collectively^ as Mr. Webster declared, but 
by the people of each State, each acting for itself, in its 
sovereign capacity. Accordingly, the people of each 
State did vote separately^ and not en masse with all the 
people of all the States collectively. If this were an 
act of sovereignty, then the States were sovereign, and 
believed to be so, up to the moment of entering the 
Union. 

To the same end, when a proposition was made to 
declare the people of the United States a body politic, 
or nation, it was rejected, and the very word nation and 
all its synonyms and derivatives were carefully avoided, 
and were never after allowed to appear in the constitu- 
tion. The very first proposition adopted by the conven- 
tion was originally expressed in these words: "That a 
national government ought to be established," etc. 
When parties were formed and their principles better 
understood, the word "national" in this sentence be- 
came so offensive that it was expunged, and replaced 
by the words "United States," that is, the several States 
constituting the Union, or Avhich have united for a spe- 
cific purpose, and not the United States as a nation, or 
consolidated empire, as Mr. Webster would have it mean. 
The original preamble of the constitution ran in these 



158 NULLIFICATION. 

words: "We, the people of the States of New Hamp- 
shire, Massachusetts," etc., naming all the thirteen 
States, "do ordain, declare, and establish the following 
constitution," etc. When the resolution was adopted 
requiring the approbation of nine States to establish 
the constitution, it was discovered that the preamble 
and this resolution might come in conflict, and vitiate 
the whole concern, as it was uncertain whether more 
than nine would adopt it, and, of the whole thirteen, 
which of them would constitute the nine; it was there- 
fore agreed to alter the phraseology, and instead of 
naming each State, to substitute the words "United 
States." This is the explanation of the phraseology 
employed in the constitution, of which Mr. Webster 
made such an improper use, attempting to deduce from 
it a purpose on the part of the convention to establish a 
consolidated empire. 

All these arrangements were the result, not of acci- 
dent, but of design. The question of a consolidated 
government was mooted in the convention, but met with 
such vigorous opposition from the Southern States, that 
the project was speedily abandoned. State pride, or 
rather State sovereignty, taking the alarm at the insidi- 
ous efforts of Mr. Hamilton, and other Northern mem- 
bers acting with him, to merge-the separate State sover- 
eignties into one great central government, set to, with 
deliberate purpose, to extort an acknowledgment, in one 
form or other, of their independence, in every provision 
of tlie constitution in which it could be decently inserted. 
In this, the Southern members, joined by no inconsider- 
able number of Northern delegates, were so successful, 
that Mr. Hamilton retired in disgust from the conven- 



NULLIFICATION. 159 

tion, and did not resume his seat until toward its 
close. 

So far, then, as the opinion of the convention can be 
taken as evidence in the case, the States were, in the 
estimation of that body, not only sovereign before the 
adoption of the constitution, but that sovereignty was 
intended, with premeditated design, to be preserved and 
continued, and was considered to have been effectually 
preserved and continued, by the terms and provisions 
of the constitution itself. The State of Rhode Island 
was the last to ratify the constitution and enter the 
Union. For a long time it was thought doubtful whether 
she would do so at all. One of her objections was under- 
stood to be this very arrangement, by reason of which, 
she said, the new Union would be no better than the old 
Confederation. Rhode Island, in my opinion, was right; 
and subsequent events have proved that she was so. 

And now, at last, all the States having ^'accedecr' 
to the constitutional "compact," — to use Mr. Calhoun's 
pet phrase, — and the government being in full opera- 
tion under the Presidency of General Washington, Mr. 
Hamilton, as Secretary of the Treasury, in connection 
with other statesmen of his school of politics, including 
some of the most brilliant intellects of the country, 
attempted, by means of administrative measures and 
legislative enactments, to accomplish that which he so 
signally failed of achieving in the convention. General 
Knox, one of the adherents of Mr. Hamilton, is under- 
stood, on the authority of Mr. Jefferson, to have pro- 
posed to General Washington to assume the crown before 
the army was disbanded, and pledged its support to sus- 
tain him in the treason. The virtue of that great man 



160 NULLll'ICATION. 

defeated the treacherous design of his Secretary at War ; 
and the Anticentralists, with Mr. Jefferson at their head, 
defeated all the indirect means of Mr. Hamilton and his 
friends to centralize the government. The alleged abuse 
of executive and legislative power during the administra- 
tion of the elder Adams, who succeeded General Wash- 
ington in the Presidency, called forth from the Anticen- 
tralists the celebrated Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions 
of 1798-99, drawn up by Mr. Jefferson, in which the 
doctrine of State interposition, or State veto, or, in plain 
terms, the right of nullification, which is but another 
term for the right of secession, was for the first time 
plainly enunciated, and became ever after a political 
formula of that party. But long before that doctrine 
expanded into actual nullification in South Carolina, 
several other States were openly manifesting no incon- 
siderable degree of impatience under Federal rule. An 
opinion prevailed that if the laws of a State were put 
into a penal form, Federal jurisdiction could be ousted 
from the limits of that State, because the State tribunals 
had an exclusive jurisdiction over penalties and crimes, 
and it was inferred that no Federal court could wrest 
the authority from them. According to that principle, 
the State of Ohio passed the laws taxing the branch of 
the United States Bank, and high penalties were to be 
enforced against every person who should attempt to 
defeat her taxation. The question was tried. Mr. Clay 
was counsel-at-law to bring suit against the State, -and 
to maintain the Federal authority. The trial took place 
in the State of Ohio. Judgment went against the State. 
It was expected that force would be used to resist its 
execution. Indeed, a most imposing exhibition of force 



NULLIFICATIOX. 161 

was made. Mr. Clay testifies that he never before in 
his life saw such a brilliant display of arms and mus- 
ketry that had been collected for the occasion; but in 
the end no use was made of them, and the law was 
allowed to go into execution. In Virginia, a case some- 
what similar occurred. Persons were liable to penalties 
for selling lottery tickets. It was contended that the 
State tribunals had an exclusive jurisdiction over the 
subject. The case was brought before the Supreme 
Court, and decided against the State. Again, in spite of 
a threat of forcible resistance, the law had its course.* 

For a period of a quarter of a century — from the 
accession to power of Mr. Jefferson in 1801, to the end 
of Mr. Monroe's second term in 1824 — the government 
was so completely in the hands of the Anticentral party, 
that the controversy attracted comparatively little atten- 
tion. Upon the election of J. Q. Adams to the Qhief 
Magistracy of the nation, the quarrel broke out afresh, 
and was not again allayed until it culminated in actual 
nidlification. When, subsequently, a subsidence did take 
place, the country was still a smouldering volcano, quick 
Avith the living fires of revolution, which nothing but 
blood was destined to quench. 

Mr. Adams, during his Presidency, openly espoused 
the cause of centralism. No sooner was he installed in 
ofiice, than either his folly, or his frankness, prompted 
him to call upon all the world to note the perfect iden- 
tity between National Republicanism and old-fashioned 
Federalism — which were but other names for centralism. 
All the distinguished Federalists of the country came to 

* See Mr. Clay's Speech on introducing the Compromise Bill. 
15 



162 NULLIFICATION. 

his banner. This was the most brilliant epoch of Amer- 
ican politics, the Augustan era of her great statesmen. 
The triumvirate which at that time shed such luster 
over the debates of the American Senate was perhaps 
never equaled, certainly never surpassed, by anything 
of the kind in the world's history. Webster, Clay, and 
Calhoun constituted a triplication of greatness, in a 
single department of intellect, occurring at the same 
time and place, and in such close juxtaposition, which 
rarely happens anywhere or in any age. They were 
the bright particular stars of the Senate chamber, and 
were surrounded by a host of luminaries similar in kind, 
and scarcely if at all inferior in degree. These intel- 
lectual giants met in deadly combat on this theme, which 
Mr. Adams threw as a bone of contention in their midst. 
Since the adoption of the constitution, the old con- 
troversy had assumed a somewhat different form: it now 
turned upon the nature and extent of the powers con- 
ferred by the constitution on Congress and the General 
government. The CentralistSy or, as they were now 
called, the Federalists, in order to extend the powers 
of Congress as far, and to as many objects as possible, 
contended for the largest and most liberal construction 
of the terms in which every grant of power is couched. 
The Anticentral party, on the other hand, denied to 
Congress and the General government every power but 
what was specifically granted to it; and contended for 
the most strict and rigid construction of each specific 
grant. Upon this question, then, issue was joined. As 
the specific grants of the constitution are so few, the 
Centralists saw that they must fall short of their aim, 
unless they could establish some principle authorizing a 



NULLIFICATION. 163 

rule of construction which might justify the assumption 
of powers not named in that instrument, or the exten- 
sion ad libitum of those that are named. To this end, 
a very cautious beginning was made in 1825. Mr. 
Adams, in his inaugural address, threw out a feeler in 
the shape of a sneer at all those who could think our 
forefathers ^'so ineffably stupid" as to intend to restrain 
Congress from doing whatever Congress might think it 
advisable to do. Chancellor Kent, about the same time, 
declared from his tribunal of authority that, "since 1812, 
the progress of public opinion had been in favor of a 
pretty liberal and enlarged construction of the Consti- 
tution of the United States." Mr. Chief Justice Jay 
suggested the existence of a Union among the people of 
this country long anterior to the Revolution, upon the 
ground that they were all British subjects^ owing allegi- 
ance to one monarch; that they were in a strict sense 
fellow-subjects, and in a variety of respects one people. 
Chancellor Kent seized upon this suggestion, and, in his 
Lectures on the Constitution, asserts roundly "that the 
association of the American people into one body politic 
took place while they were colonies of the British empire 
and owed allegiance to the British crown." This was 
an unsupported proposition, of which the lecturer made 
no further use than merely to state it. This proposi- 
tion, then, which was first suggested by Chief Justice 
Jay, and put forth, naked and unsupported, by Chan- 
cellor Kent, was expanded and enforced, in the most 
elaborate manner, by Judge Story, in his lectures as 
Dane Professor of Harvard University. It was finally 
adopted by Mr. Webster as the principal basis of his 
arguments on the constitution. 



1G4 XULLIFICATIOX. 

Here, then, was the place *' where the wikl fig-trees 
joined the walls of Troy." This was the ground on 
which the Ceiitralists relied to support their broad and 
liberal constructions of constitutional grants of power, 
and to extend the legislation of Congress to subjects 
over which no specific grants of power were given. And 
here it was that all who would defend the palladium of 
States' rights must meet the enemy, and fight him back 
from beneath this cover into the open plains of facts 
and common sense. Mr. Tazewell and Judge Upshur, 
of Virginia, met their brother legist in debate, and 
found it but too easy to demolish the ill-chosen founda- 
tion on which that distinguished jurist relied to con- 
struct his arguments; and Mr. Calhoun and his allies, 
I must confess it, were equally successful with Mr. 
Webster. 

During Mr. Adams's Presidential term, which, un- 
like his immediate predecessors', was not renewed, Mr. 
Clay was Secretary of State, and Mr. Calhoun was 
President of the Senate. Neither of those gentlemen, 
therefore, participated in the unimportant skirmishes 
which took place in Congress during that administra- 
tion. This being the first time, for a quarter of a cen- 
tury, that centralism had arrived at power, it was 
deemed but fair to allow it the opportunity, without 
captious opposition, to unfurl its banner and display its 
principles. Those principles finally succeeded, at the 
close of Mr. Adams's single term, in actualizing them- 
selves in the tariff act of 1828, commonly called, by its 
opponents, the "Bill of Abominations." The passage 
of this act transferred to General Jackson's administra- 
tion, which immediately succeeded that of Mr. Adams, 



NULLIFICATION. 1G5 

the strife which, at that epoch, raged with such fury 
that it threatened a dissolution of the Union. 

The tariff bill of 1828 was evidently and avowedly 
passed more as a measure of protection than revenue ; 
but as the majority refused to amend the title of the bill, 
so as to make it appear on the face of it that the duties 
were laid for protection and not solely for revenue, 
there was no chance of bringing the case before the 
courts in order to obtain a judicial decision of its con- 
stitutionality. The entire South was very indignant at 
the passage of a measure which it deemed so unjust 
and oppressive, and looked to Mr. Calhoun for a solu- 
tion of the difficulty. That gentleman could see but 
two possible remedies: one was a repeal or modifica- 
tion of the tariff under the auspices of the incoming 
administration ; the other was what he called State 
interposition or veto, the naked meaning of which was 
nullification^ or still worse, secession^ or still worse yet, 
dissolution of the Union. 

The hope founded on the first of these alternatives 
proving fallacious, the second alone remained as a 
dernier ressort. Accordingly, South Carolina, with a 
boldness which partook more of rashness than courage, 
proceeded, on the 24th day of November, 1832, to pass 
an ordinance annulling the operation of the tariff law 
within her limits. Congress convening soon after, the 
whole subject was placed before the Senate by a Mes- 
sage of the President, which was referred to the Ju- 
diciary Committee, who, thereupon, reported the bill 
which has usually been called the Force Bill. Upon 
the authority of this bill, the President issued his celc- 

15* 



166 NULLIFICATION. 

brated Proclamation, and both parties proceeded to make 
hostile preparations. 

At this juncture, the State of Virginia, the most 
powerful Southern member of the Union, interposed 
her good offices. She earnestly entreated South Caro- 
lina to suspend her ordinance, and appeal once more to 
the justice of Congress. Thus solicited, South Caro- 
lina agreed to suspend measures of forcible resistance 
until every peaceable means for an adjustment of pend- 
ing difficulties was exhausted. No express agreement 
was made by Virginia, but a very strong implication 
was raised by the method of her interposition, and by 
the consent of South Carolina, at her solicitation, to 
defer immediate action, that in the event Congress re- 
fused to aftbrd the desired redress, the former State 
would join her fortunes with those of the latter. It 
cannot be doubted for one moment, if Congress had 
denied the justice which was asked, that Virginia would 
have felt herself bound by every principle of honor, 
and by every consideration of interest, to make com- 
mon cause with South Carolina; and if she had done 
so, it is equally certain that the entire South would 
have eventually become parties to the contest, and the 
war, which has been thrown upon the present genera- 
tion, would have come ofif then. 

Apart from selfish considerations, there are many 
reasons calculated to raise regrets that such was not 
the case, since it is morally certain that such a conflict, 
however it might be deferred, was bound to take place 
some time or other. At that epoch, the fanaticism and 
demagogism, which are now monopolizing the coun- 
sels of the nation and covering the land -with desola- 



NULLIFICATION. 167 

tion, did not exist. Public life was filled up with so 
many great men, able statesmen, eminent characters, 
with broad and liberal views, that their presence and 
influence would have insured a generous conduct of the 
war, waged upon lofty principles and in the true spirit 
of an enlightened and disinterested patriotism. The 
character of the distinguished military chieftain who 
then occupied the chair of State would have been a 
sufficient guarantee against the imbecility, the blunders, 
and charlatanry which are now protracting the agony 
of the nation almost to the point of dissolution. Under 
auspices so favorable, there is scarcely a reasonable 
doubt that the war would have been a speedy one as 
well as a generous one; that not alone a flaming sword 
would have flashed wrath and vengeance over the coun- 
try, but the olive branch of peace would have gone 
forth steadily and continuedly with the sword of jus- 
tice; that power would have been tempered with mercy; 
and, above all, that no act of ruthless vandalism would 
have been committed, as has now been done, to put it 
out of the power of the insurgents to propose terms of 
capitulation, or even to speak of peace except as hum- 
ble suppliants on their knees. Under such conditions, 
there is every reason to believe that much if not all 
of the private suffering and individual ruin which have 
been entailed upon persons, many of whom were en- 
tirely innocent of the war, would have been avoided. 
There would then have been nbthing in the way of a 
cordial reconstruction of the Union upon a broad and 
solid foundation, which, perhaps, might have lasted for 
an indefinite period. 

On the other hand, there is no lack of reasons in 



168 " NULLIFICATION. 

favor of things as they are. At that early epoch, the 
democratic principles had not sufficiently developed 
themselves: they were not as well understood then as 
they are now: they had not manifested all their tend- 
ency to license, or all their capacity for disorganiza- 
tion; and in all probability a reconstruction might 
have taken place without those modifications which are 
now inevitable before a permanent pacification can be 
eifected. So infatuated were this people in favor of the 
democratic principles, and so little did they know of 
their real character when unrestricted, that their agency 
in our troubles seems never to have been suspected. It 
has been wisely said. That fools rush in, where angels 
fear to tread; and for real mischief, there is nothing 
like a set of fools to perpetrate it; all villainies result 
from a want of sense. It does seem, therefore, that 
fools and madmen were absolutely demanded for the 
present crisis, in order to effect an utter demolition of 
the existing order of things, and clear the way for a 
future reconstruction of government on principles which 
shall be self-sustaining and durable. 

But to return to our narrative. South Carolina, 
then, at the instance of Virginia, suspended her Ordi- 
nance of Nullification, and made the desired appeal to 
the justice of Congress. The appeal was not made in 
vain, for there were intellectual giants in those days, 
and great men are always liberal, conciliatory, and for- 
bearing. Mr. Clay had ever been the great pacificator 
of his country's troubles. Conciliation was an office 
for which his great heart and noble intellect appear to 
have been peculiarly well adapted. He assisted at the 
conference which, in 1814-15, negotiated the treaty 



XULLIFICATIOX. 169 

of peace between England and the United States, at 
Ghent; he quieted, bj compromise, in 1820-24, the 
difficulties which were precipitating the nation into civil 
war on the occasion of the admission of Missouri into 
the Union; and he was not wanting, in the same ca- 
pacity, on the occasion which had just arisen to call for 
a fresh display of his compromising tendencies. In the 
true spirit of a lofty and enlightened patriotism, he now 
made an unhesitating sacrifice, on the altar of his coun- 
try's peace, of his own cherished plans, and promptly 
introduced into the Senate a bill, which ultimately 
passed both Houses of Congress, called the Compromise 
Act, This Act provided for the gradual reduction of 
duties on imports, running through nine years, till they 
were brought down, in 1842, to the revenue standard — 
a measure which substantially met the views of South 
Carolina. Her Nullification Ordinance was accordingly 
withdrawn: the differences, which threatened such mel- 
ancholy consequences, ceased for the moment; and har- 
mony and peace were apparently restored. 

So far, then, neither party seems to have taken or 
lost anything by this motion. Beneath a treacherous 
disguise, their real attitudes were but little changed. 
An apparent tranquillity masked a deadly hostility. 
The respective principles of the two parties remained 
pretty much in statu quo ante helium. The question 
was adjourned, not decided. The combatants drew off 
with scowling brows. It was a truce, not a treaty : an 
armistice, not an amicable adjustment. The nullifiers 
were checked, not mated: they still sent forth their 
notes of defiance: their curses were not minced or mut- 
tered, they were loud and deep: another time they 



170 NULLIFICATION. 

would not be balked. At least something was gained 
by this ebullition, this cropping out to the surface of a 
hostility which had lain dormant, but uneasy in its 
slumbers, during a whole generation. Both banners 
were at last fairly ^unfurled : their mottoes flew high in 
the air: there was no mistaking the question now. Ac- 
cordingly there succeeded, to this armed and angry 
pacification, many years of the stormiest politics that 
ever tried a nation's stability. Under their new name 
of Democrats, and with the powerful aid of Northern 
allies, the old Anticentral alias Republican alias States' 
Rights party succeeded in annihilating, at the ballot-box, 
the new organization of their ancient enemy, the old 
Central alias Federal alias National Republican party, 
who now, like themselves, fought under a new alias, 
the honored name of Whigs, of revolutionary memory. 
This decisive engagement was again followed by an- 
other short period of treacherous tranquillity, and the 
policy of the government was thought to be settled for 
all time to come. But again the contest was delayed, 
not determined. The hostility, indeed, was a radical 
one: its cause lay at the heart of the nation, in the 
very roots of the government; and the quarrel was 
bound to renew itself at each succeeding generation, 
and, at each renewal, with more deadly purpose. A 
new occasion must be sought and found, indeed would 
be sure to present itself, whereon the conflict would at 
last become one of life and death, a war to the knife 
and the knife to the hilt. 

Looking back at this controversy from the point of 
view we now occupy, and contemplating it in the form 
it had acquired in 1832, the first things that strike us 



NULLIFICATION. 171 

are the proportions to which it had grown, the prospec- 
tive character it had acquired, and the threatening ex- 
pression of its aspect at that juncture. It was no longer 
a vague and undefined jumble of puerile abstractions : 
its sudden and rapid development into the practical 
measure of Nullification startles the mind like a clap 
of thunder. Notwithstanding this Pallas-like form, in 
which, at a single bound, it sprang all armed from the 
midst of verbal disquisitions, the quarrel, nevertheless, 
was no new one, abruptly sprung upon the country on 
the spur of the moment and without antecedents. Pos- 
sessing already a past, it now acquired a future. It 
became a drama of three acts, of which Nullification is 
the second. That measure is the ''middle," of which 
the "beginning" lies far back in the past, and the 
"end" as far forward in the future. The protasis 
began in the convention; the epitasis was reached in 
1832; and the catastrophe is now unfolding. Nullifi- 
cation, then, stands, like a double finger-board, half 
way between the two extremities, pointing in both direc- 
tions, marking the precise progress the quarrel had 
made up to that point, and telling as well whence it 
came as whither it tended. 

The moral metempsychosis through which this con- 
troversy has passed, from the egg to the fly, from its 
inception eighty-seven years ago to its denouement now 
enacting, does not differ from the material metamorphoses 
peculiar to all organized beings. The changes at dif- 
ferent epochs are not more violent in the one case than 
in the other. The Proteus, once declared, was bound 
to complete the series of transmigrations, possessing 
still an unbroken identity through many mutations of 



172 XULLIFICATIOX. 

form, and over long periods of time. The stages of its 
developments are far asunder, but connected bj a sur- 
prising unity of duration between acts, unity of place, 
and unity of parties. Individuals, the dramatis per- 
sonse, change, because at each period a single genera- 
tion had passed off the stage ; but the parties and the 
motives are identical. The occasions of its manifesta- 
tions are different, the cause is always the same. Its 
methods of action vary, its spirit is a unit. 

In the convention its elements were all rudimental, 
in a state of envelopment, as it were ; but they were all 
there. In 1832 its elements exhibited a marJi:ed devel- 
opment, the quarrel acquired suddenly a vigorous and 
decided organization, and gave the first indications of 
its purpose, which was as yet feeble and uncertain. In 
1861 its purpose was fully matured, and realized itself 
in quick and terrible action. In the convention the 
occasion of its manifestation was of a purely sectional 
nature, sectional interest; and this continued to be the 
active motive of the quarrel throughout its whole life; 
but, beyond its sectional character, the occasion or the 
motive of the controversy was, in the convention, indefi- 
nite, indistinct, without form, and void. The parties 
merely averred that, from the magnitude and configura- 
tion of the country, there would necessarily be one sec- 
tion in which the numerical majority would declare itself 
in preference to another; and that, in the most populous 
section, some interest would be found, or created, on 
purpose to be fostered, which would grow by fostering 
until it dominated every other. What this interest might 
be, was not then known or suspected. In 1832 the in- 
terest had already actualized itself in the tariff of 1828, 



NULLIFICATION. 173 

said to be an oppressive measure, which discriminated 
in favor of the North against the South. The negro 
question, as a disturbing element of society, was not yet 
fairly before the people; but abolitionism, as a social, 
moral, and religious problem, was already propounded 
and warmly discussed : it was only in the bud, but prom- 
ised a robust growth and a foul flowering. In 1861 the 
tariff, without losing its influence, gave precedence to 
the question of slavery, which had now passed its bloom 
and was arrived at its bitter fruitage. In the convention 
the method of resistance was simply to reject the consti- 
tution, and leave things where they were. In 1832 the 
method of resistance was the peaceable remedy of nulli- 
fication, without secession. In 1861 the remedy was 
secession^ mth flagrant war. 

Throughout all these mutations, modifications, and 
developments the real cause continued always the same ; 
the spirit one and indivisible. The first was sectional 
jealousy. State sovereignty. State rights, or by whatever 
other name it may be called. The other was the ''spirit 
of the age," derived from the revolutionary principles 
already described, which liberated the human mind from 
the tyranny of the old theological regime of the middle 
ages, and which have ever since taken entire possession 
not only of the mind of society, but of all individual 
understandings in this country. This spirit has been 
greatly intensified by a sense of wild and lawless liberty 
inherent in the organizations of the people, inherited 
from their old Scythian ancestors, who, more than a 
thousand years ago, defied the arms of the Roman world, 
and finally built empires of their own upon its ruins. 
This hereditary love of personal freedom, of individual 

16 



174 NULLIFICATION. 

liberty, which the people brought hither, has been so 
fostered by the physical conditions of the country, by 
their habits and antecedents, until it has become as anti- 
social as was the temper of their savage progenitors. It 
is a natural process to transfer this strong feeling of 
personal independence to local associations, and thence, 
by an easy transition, to one's own State, or even sec- 
tion, as opposed to that broader association, or general 
society, which is too wide to be embraced by one's sym- 
pathies, and whose tendency is to obliterate all distinc- 
tions both of individuals and States. 



PART IL 

CONSEQUENCES OF THE WAR 



Geographical and Political Unities of the Nation. 

If the views set forth in the foregoing part of this 
work be at all correct, I think there can be little doubt 
as to the true genealogy of the present war. That it 
was already a foregone conclusion of the fundamental 
dogmas of the government at the moment of its estab- 
lishment, none but a very common logic has Been needed 
to demonstrate. Assuming, then, that it has been fairly 
deduced, as an inevitable consequence, from the spirit 
of our social system, the question occurs : Will the war 
satisfy that spirit, or quench its disorganizing tendencies 
in the blood it is now shedding ? 

Many considerations, based on the passions and the 
weak side of human nature, would seem to return a 
negative answer. But every consideration of reason, 
and justice, and sound policy requires that an instant 
stop be put to this iniquitous strife, and that the higher 
claims of humanity and civilization be attended to. The 
war is so much the more iniquitous because there was so 
little necessity for it, because indeed it was so purely 

(Ho) 



176 GEOGRAPHICAL AND POLITICAL 

gratuitous, and because the age has gone by when 
domestic quarrels were necessarily adjusted by such 
methods. 

At an earlier period of the world's history this war 
might have been allowed to take its course and settle 
the controversy in its own violent way; and indeed it 
would have done so without let or hinderance, for the 
world then knew no other way of settling disputes ex- 
cept by brute force. But now humanity is too far 
advanced in age to close its ears against the voice of 
reason, and allow ignorance and brutal passions to take 
its affairs out of its hands and dispose of them in the 
manner a set of wild beasts might be supposed to do. 
The nation which claims to be the advance guard of 
civilization ought to know better and do better. 

In point of fact, there is no necessary antagonism 
between the northern and southern divisions of the na- 
tion of a nature to repel each other. Their present 
hostility is founded upon a misconception of the true 
interests of both parties ; and a very little reflection will 
suffice to rectify the errors of ignorance and passion. 
The geographical configuration of the country prede- 
termines it to a political unity, and points it out as the 
locality of an empire of the first magnitude among the 
powers of the earth. Its northern and southern sec- 
tions, so far from being hostile to the peaceable action 
of its social relations, are the positive and negative poles 
of the nation, whose friendly antagonism is essential to 
a healthy and vigorous exercise of the national func- 
tions: they are reciprocating opposites, admirably cal- 
culated, by their action and reaction upon each other, 
to invigorate the national life to a point of intensity 
jiever reached before perhaps by any nation. 



UNITIES OF THE NATION. 177 

Owing to its peculiar physical conformation, this coun- 
try never could have been the nursery of infant commu- 
nities possessing civilizing instincts. It contains none 
of those natural divisions, in which Europe is so rich, 
capable of receiving the first small beginnings of incipi- 
ent nations, and protecting them against each other until 
they were able to protect themselves. Europe is an 
assemblage of just such marked contrasts and bold 
reliefs, constituting a series of localities so fortified 
against each other by natural barriers, that each has 
been a cradle for nurturing, and the theater for bring- 
ing forward, a nationality of so much importance to the 
full development of humanity that the civilization of 
the world would have been incomplete without it. 

Here, on the contrary, the whole country is open and 
exposed from one extremity to the other, from the Arc- 
tic circle to the tropics. The only mountain barrier in 
it is banished so far to the west as to give it an eastern 
slope of more than a thousand miles from the Rocky 
Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean, with no obstacle to 
overcome in the passage across greater than a few fine 
rivers of no considerable width. The climate of the 
United States — though embracing twenty-five degrees 
of parallel, and including nearly the entire temperate 
zone of the northern hemisphere on this continent — is 
so equalized by physical causes and by geographical and 
astronomical laws as to ofier no violent contrasts, nor 
detract to any appreciable degree from its general char- 
acter of unity. It would seem, therefore, from these 
and other causes, that this country was designed to re- 
ceive a homogeneous people, with a ready-made civiliza- 
tion, who should form a single nation with no moral or 

16* 



178 GEOGRAPHICAL AND POLITICAL 

social diversities greater than its geographical dispari- 
ties. 

Accordingly, thus summoned, such a people did actu- 
ally come to it in the fullness of time, with a civilization 
already prepared, and formed at once a nation of the 
kind described. As was prefigured by the geographical 
unity of the place, the population have been in a large 
degree homogeneous, and have continued the develop- 
ment of the civilization they brought with them in a 
manner no less uniform and harmonious. Speaking the 
same language, obeying the same laws, conquering under 
the same flag, exulting in the same great men, owning 
the same imperishable history, the inhabitants, from one 
extremity to the other, have marched forward in a career 
of civilization with a unanimity of sentiment and design 
rarely equaled and never surpassed. 

With a government adapted to the exigencies of the 
nation, the small social differences which have grown 
out of equally slight local diversities need cause no 
other than a sense of mutual dependence and a desire 
for the closest relations. Those differences will in fact 
only serve to excite a more active life, a more extensive 
and lasting interchange of all that each can give in 
abundance to its rival. So far from being natural ene- 
mies, the two divisions are but too well adapted, too 
truly made for each other; they have too much need of 
each other, they are too much the complement of each 
other, not to unite for their common interest. There 
is between the two peoples a common basis, an essential, 
indissoluble tie, which they are not at liberty to break. 

But to insure a lasting co-operation of functions, a 
durable interchange of mutual benefits, requires a per- 



UNITIES OF THE NATION. 179 

feet equilibrium of political forces between the two sec- 
tions. The balance once destroyed, a rupture of their 
peaceable relations is inevitable. Notwithstanding its 
moral and physical unities, which are very remarkable 
for a territory of such magnitude, this country is still 
too large, and its social interests are too diversified, not 
to give rise to those divergencies of opinions which are 
sure to find their ultimate solution in war, unless arti- 
ficial arrangements be employed to reconcile their difi'er- 
ences. To preserve this balance of power is the duty of 
government. If the government be of a kind to excite 
sectional hostilities instead of allaying them, it is not 
adapted to the purpose of its creation. The tendency 
of all social systems is to conform themselves to their 
moral and physical surroundings. If they be hindered 
in their destination, or if their spontaneous movement 
be obstructed, strife, and sometimes ruin, ensues. Our 
present difficulties are attributable to obstructions which 
are offered to the spontaneous efforts of society to rectify 
its incongruities. If for this instinctive movement of 
society a rational method of development be substituted, 
the inevitable confusions of the former may be obviated, 
and the desired reforms be obtained by the peaceable 
means of the latter. The first step to this end is to 
ascertain the cause of disturbance. A class of persons 
at the North, respectable for its numbers, believes the 
disorganizing element is to be found in Southern society. 
The people of the South, on the contrary, are of opinion 
that the cause of disturbance is exclusively at the North. 
The object of this work is to locate the evil in the fun- 
damental principles of the government, which, acting 
equally upon both sections, have become obstructive to 



180 SOUTHERN SOCIETY. 

peaceable relations and to social order. As we have 
already, in the first part of this work, had a glimpse of 
Northern societ}^, and will obtain other glimpses here- 
after, I will now compliment the first of the above opin- 
ions by taking a rapid glance over the surface of South- 
ern society, and see if we can discover any social element 
there of a nature to justify such a belief. 

Southern Society. 

It is in Northern society that the democratic prin- 
ciples most manifest their license; because its laboring 
population, constituting a majority of the inhabitants, 
and as a class no better than the same class in all coun- 
tries, are raised by the democratic principles to a polit- 
ical importance which enables them at any time, by their 
votes, to determine elections and influence the policy of 
government. It is in such communities that the dog- 
mas of liberty of conscience, popular sovereignty, and 
universal equality tell with fatal effect. 

In Southern society, on the contrary, these principles 
are comparatively harmless; because their excesses are 
counteracted to no small degree by the system of labor 
established there. The basis of labor being negro sla- 
very, the country is restricted to a comparatively choice 
population of whites. Four millions of slaves, (numer- 
ically equal almost to the whites,) who are denied the 
elective franchise, go a long way to neutralize the ruin- 
ous effects of universal suffrage, and to limit the absolute 
quality of popular sovereignty. Liberty of conscience, 
free inquiry, and endless discussion find, to some extent, 
a counterpoise in the same arrangement. Above all, the 



SOUTHERN SOCIETY. 181 

dogma of equality, while it is limited in its eifects, is 
also practically refuted, by a large population of efficient 
laborers, who daily manifest their moral and intellectual 
inferiority by their servility, and by a thousand evidences 
of incapacity for any other position in civilized life than 
the one they occupy. In short, all the absolute dogmas 
of democracy lose much of their energy and virulence 
when brought in contact with this single element of 
Southern society. 

From the system of slavery proceed nearly all the 
other social conditions of the South: it is a nucleus 
around which all her social relations precipitate them- 
selves, and form a homogeneous society of which domestic 
slavery is the central principle. In consequence of this 
arrangement, the populations of the South are almost 
exclusively rural : with few exceptions, her very towns 
possess more of a sylvan than an urban character: 
agriculture, which separates the laborers in small squads 
at vast intervals apart, is the main employment of the 
country; and the strict discipline which is observed 
renders large reunions both difficult and innoxious. 
Under such conditions, dangerous disturbances are not 
only of rare occurrence, but it is next to impossible for 
them to happen at all. The perfect subordination of 
the laborers, spread thinly over wide surfaces: the 
isolation of families, forming diminutive centers of 
small communities bound together by the closest ties 
of mutual affection, dependence, and interest : the 
peaceful occupations of husbandry: the plenty which 
everywhere abounds: the almost utter absence of want: 
the intimate communion with nature; all things, in 
short, tend to tranquilize society, and exclude the ex- 



182 SOUTHERN SOCIETY. 

citements and riotous scenes so common in denser com- 
munities and in large manufacturing districts crowded 
with free white laborers, who are at the same time noisj 
politicians, debaters, and voters. 

The intricate relations of capital and labor disturb 
not the social quietude of the South ; for her capital 
and labor are united and harmonious: nor are her 
slumbers broken by a growing apprehension of an ever- 
increasing preponderance of the laboring classes: nor 
by the rise and progress of a pauper population. There 
the rights of property are never assailed, nor ever likely 
to be, except from abroad. No such an episode of 
modern civilization as Mormonism could have proceeded 
from the bosom of her society. Associations of "Free 
Lovers," "Women's Rights," "Communists," "Social- 
ists," are never heard of in the South, except as echoes 
from the North. 

Contrasts, reliefs, are as much needed in the moral 
as in the external world. No large society can do well 
without them. They are needed as countervailing in- 
fluences, as reciprocating opposites, to draw off and 
counteract on the one hand the excesses of each other, 
and to intensify on the other the national life. As long 
as the equilibrium of political force was maintained be- 
tween the two sections, the government worked com- 
paratively well: the South attempted no interference 
with Northern institutions: there was a continual in- 
terchange of benefits : it was all give and take. I will 
not say, as some have said, that the South gave more 
than she took ; though that may be possible, it is hardly 
probable: it is more likely the advantages were mutual, 
and it is certain they were incalculable. Volumes would 



SOUTHERN SOCIETY. 183 

be needed to enumerate all the material exchanges and 
courtesies that aggrandized and beautified the social life 
of the two sections, until the preponderance of political 
force was transferred in a large degree to the North. 
Then, instantly, these fine relations ceased : the entente 
cordiale was interrupted: the disturbing power of the 
democratic principles manifested itself: criminations 
and recriminations followed: aggressions and retalia- 
tions began; and human folly culminated in this mon- 
strous crime. 

It will not do to say that the democratic principles 
had nothing to do with this crime: that they are not 
responsible for the follies and vices of men; and that 
revolutions are liable to occur in governments where 
democracy never reigned. Democracy has caused every 
revolution which has taken place in the nations of 
Christendom during the last three hundred years. It 
cannot be denied that the democratic principles were 
directly responsible for the abolition fanaticism at the 
North: for the separation of the churches North and 
South: for the bloody feuds in Kansas: for the John 
Brown raid into Virginia : for the election of Mr. Lin- 
coln on purely sectional and party grounds : for the 
higher law doctrine : for the right of individual inter- 
pretations of laws and constitutions: for the doctrine 
of State rights and its derivative right of peaceable 
secession ; and that all those events were but preludes 
to the swelling theme of the present grand climax — the 
legitimate j^n«Z^ to such ominous preparations. 

So far w^as Southern society from possessing any dis- 
turbing quality, of which the North had a right to com- 
plain, that the society itself, in view of the disorganizing 



184 RECONSTRUCTION OF THE UNION. 

tendencies at the North, was a saving clause in the con- 
stitution of the general society of the country from which 
the North, at some future day, might have derived im- 
mense advantage. If a perfect balance of power could 
have been maintained between the two sections, not only 
would those material exchanges described above have 
been kept up, and the national character have been 
decorated and beautified by many courtesies and ameni- 
ties of social life, but the conservative quality of South- 
ern society would have gone far to have staved oif to an 
indefinite period the peril now so imminent to North- 
ern communities. 

Reconstruction of the Union. 

But peace and those thousand benefits, ornamental 
and useful, having passed away with the transferrence 
of power, it now remains to consider whether and how 
peaceable relations can be restored, and whether and 
how a reconstruction of the Union can be effected: or 
in the event of a final separation, what are likely to be 
the probable efi"ects of the war, and the consequent dis- 
solution of the Union, upon the respective destinies of 
the two nations. 

This is a question of immense magnitude, and sur- 
rounded with many supreme difficulties. In the present 
attitude of affairs, there would seem to be no way open 
to a restoration of peace; and as for a reconstruction 
of the Union, that event appears to be as far removed 
from human understandings, or a probability of achieve- 
ment, as the squaring of the circle. There are many 
excellent persons in the South whose patriotism will be 



RECONSTRUCTION OF THE UNION. 185 

shocked by the bare statement of such a proposition 
as the restoration of the Union. In their opinion, the 
bloody fields, broken hearts, ruined fortunes of the 
South cry aloud for vengeance on the ruthless invader: 
until these be atoned, and a fit retribution be visited on 
the latter, their wrath, like that of Achilles, will know 
no abatement. 

There is no question but that vengeance will be meted 
out to all parties according to their deserts; for the 
moral government of this world is too well adjusted for 
ofienses to pass unpunished. Who are the guilty, who 
the innocent, are not questions for us, with our passions 
and prejudices, to determine. Then let us leave ven- 
geance to whom it properly belongs, and think no more 
of it. 

Time and the unfolding of events will no doubt solve 
this momentous problem in their own unprecedented 
way; but also wise men, who will think without heat 
and act without passion, can greatly facilitate the deci- 
sion, and at the same time obviate unnumbered woes 
which will arise if the solution be left to the blind forces 
of nature, or to the natural course of events. It is not 
to be supposed that the destiny of this great country is 
abandoned to the mere hazards of war : much less is it 
consigned to the follies or caprices of a few silly indi- 
viduals; chance has as little to do with the fate of this 
nation as with the creation of the world : the course of 
its civilization is predetermined by the laws of Infinite 
Reason, which man cannot contravene ; and however its 
progress may be retarded or harassed by his crimes and 
imbecilities, the eternal fitness and relation of things 
will still carry it forward to its prescribed end. But 

n 



lob PtECONSTRUCTION OF THE UNION. 

Providence is not wise for the sake of absolving men 
from their duty. God has endowed us with reason in 
order that we might help him to direct our own aifairs 
in a rational and not in a blind manner. In the provi- 
dential government of the world there is ample room 
left for the exercise of human virtue and folly, for the 
devotion of the hero and the selfishness of the coward. 
What, therefore, we can neither prevent nor accomplish, 
we can at least delay or hasten by our good or bad con- 
duct. 

If there be any analogy in human affairs, or in the 
epochs of history, we might possibly derive some light 
from the past of humanity, or at least some consolation 
in our misery by a comparison with other nations and 
ages. One of the main obstacles in the way of a settle- 
ment seems to be the novelty of our environments: not 
that the situation is unprecedented in history, but that 
it is new to us, we never having had any such experience 
before. As a people, taken en masse, we know little of, 
and care less for, the social crises of past times. And 
yet those times, if we interrogate them, might direct us 
the route to our true destination. So far from being a 
historical novelty, our situation is the commonest event 
of the ages and the nations. During anterior epochs, 
scarcely a generation of mankind has been allowed to 
pass off the stage of life without participating in, or 
witnessing, an internecine war such as ours. The blood 
that has been spilt, the hearts that have been broken, 
the fortunes ruined, the resentments roused, have not 
been less than our own: in many cases, far greater; 
and yet they seem to have been no bar to reconcilia- 
tions. Witness the civil wars of England ; and witness 
too her perfect national unity at this day. 



RECONSTRUCTIOX OF THE UNIOX. 187 

During the course of the sixteenth century, the eman- 
cipation of the human mind in spiritual matters, and 
the centralization of power in temporal affairs, triumphed 
at one and the same time all over Europe. The first 
was a victory over the absolute power of the Church; 
the second established itself on the ruins of feudalism. 
So far, liberty of conscience and absolute monarchy 
were in close alliance : they marched abreast over the 
ramparts of the ancient ecclesiastical order and the 
ancient feudal and municipal liberty. No sooner was 
this double triumph achieved, than the struggle between 
monarchy and democracy in civil society began. The 
first shock between these two forces took place in Eng- 
land. If we except the wars of the Roses, which were 
more dynastic than reformative, all the civil wars of 
England, posterior to that epoch, were wars of liberty 
against despotism ; but it was the liberty of the people 
against the despotism of the crown; the liberty of the 
many against the tyranny of one. The crown had too 
many prerogatives, the people too few. Royalty pro- 
claimed itself absolute and superior to all laws ; the 
people claimed their ancient prerogatives. Issue was 
joined upon these points, and the trial was by battle. A 
series of revolutions followed. Each revolution was a 
step toward an equilibrium of the political forces so 
unequally divided: from each revolution, the people 
came out with a little more power, and the king with a 
little less ; until finally, after more than a hundred years 
of conflicts and truces, a perfect balance of power was 
obtained, and peace settled down permanently upon the 
nation. 

Such was the real nature of the struggle which began 



188 RECOXSTRUCTION OF THE UNION. 

in England about the year of grace 1640. But the 
nation was very far from understanding the exact 
nature of the case, as I have described it. She knew 
not distinctly what she required, or w^hat she was in 
search of. She had not the slightest conception of the 
immense magnitude of the quarrel, of the true points 
at issue, or of the stupendous results to which it was to 
lead. So far as her knowledge of the grand ends to be 
obtained was concerned, she was a blind instrument in 
the hands of a superior power. The first thing that 
strikes us in that famous history is the apparent insig- 
nificance of the origin of those celebrated wars, the low 
aims and mean purposes for which they were begun. 
The great English Rebellion, as it was called, was 
brought about ostensibly by an attempt of the king to 
collect a tax of twenty shillings of ship money, which 
one John Hampden, a gentleman of large fortune, re- 
fused to pay. But this slight cause was only the ex- 
terior envelope of ends incomparably greater. Those 
sublime ends, of which no one thought at the time, of 
which no one was conscious, were attained after many 
long years of hard fighting. The others, the base mo- 
tives, the wretched personalities, the individual passions 
engaged in the strife, and which alone preoccupied the 
minds of all the actors, — they, after making for a mo- 
ment so much noise in the world, sink into deep oblivion, 
and degenerate into uncertain anecdotes, which ordinary 
history may search for and collect, but which the phi- 
losophy of history neglects as indifferent to humanity. 

In the war now raging in this country, the parties 
litigant are reversed; the actors have changed sides: 
the cause is the same; the ends are the same. It is 



RECONSTRUCTION OF THE UNION. 189 

still liberty, security, an equilibrium of political power 
which is required, and which is sought for, though no 
one seems to know it. But, in this case, it is the peo- 
ple w^ho are the despots: the people have too much 
power, the government too little. It is the tyranny of 
the many which now oppresses society. The people 
have proclaimed themselves absolute, and superior to all 
laws and constitutions. The minority have no guaran- 
tees of security against the majority. It is to achieve 
liberty against license, order against anarchy, that this 
war is waged. It is to restore an equilibrium of politi- 
cal forces; to re-establish the lost balance of power; to 
check the excesses of one set of principles by the in- 
troduction of a countervailing set; to take the govern- 
ment from party and restore it to humanity, to the 
nation ; to obtain guarantees for the execution of laws 
and the observance of the constitution, — these are the 
purposes, the supreme objects of this revolution. It is 
the rebellion of Society against the People; of the peo- 
ple against themselves. It is the cause of Civilization 
which is being tried. It is the Future versus the Pres- 
ent which is the style of the suit. These great ends 
cannot but be accomplished, though it may require a 
hundred years for their achievement; for society can- 
not rest until based on their firm foundation. The other 
motives, the paltry ambitions, the trivial interests, the 
fanaticisms, the hatreds, the prejudices, the spirit of 
revenge, whatever, in short, is personal or ihdividual, 
however they may figure in the strife, will disappear 
from the grand denouement of the drama, and live, if 
at all, only in memoirs and biographies. 

In view of these facts, of the clear purposes mani- 



190 CONSEQUENCES OF SOUTHERN INDEPENDENCE. 

fested by present hostilities, of the social wants of the 
nation, of the known ends to be obtained, is it too much 
to expect that rational men will hasten to anticipate the 
designs of the Revolution, and terminate the war by 
granting all its demands? How this is to be done, good 
men and true only can determine. Let there be a grand 
inquest of the nation: let Virtue and Wisdom preside 
over it; and the issue cannot be doubtful. 

But if this be not done, and the war be allowed to 
terminate the quarrel in its own way: what, in that 
case, is likely to happen? In that case, one of two 
things is very likely to happen: either the Southern 
Confederacy will gain its independence, or it will not. 

The Consequences of Southern Independence. 

We will consider the first of these alternatives, as it 
was the avowed object of the war, and suppose the in- 
dependence of the Southern Confederacy achieved, and 
the process of decomposition begun by a separation of 
the Northern and Southern States. Is there any guar- 
antee that this division, which will be the first, shall be 
the last? What is to arrest the further continuance of 
the process, and save society from dissolution? The 
doctrine of State rights has met with the most signal 
success: it has established its rule by conquest: it has 
won its spurs on the field of battle : it has demolished 
all opposition: it has no rival in the field of politics: 
the worst derivative of democracy, it will have accom- 
plished not only itself, but it will have established also 
its own darling derivative, the right of secession : flushed 
with victory, then, what is to stay its progress? Is 



CONSEQUEXCES OF SOUTHERN INDEPENDEXCE. 191 

there anything in the new constitution calculated to 
protect the Confederate States from endless subdi. 
visions? Is the new alliance more binding than the 
old? Has the Southern league, by reason of some 
secret virtue which is in it, so limited the democratic 
dogmas that they shall be constrained to act with 
modest forbearance, and insure order without tyranny 
and progress without excesses? Is society any better 
protected from the caprices of opinion than before? In 
short, has the Southern Confederacy constructed a 
political system which, in the whole of its active de- 
velopment, shall be always fully consequent on its own 
principles, and furnish accordant solutions on all the 
various leading questions of the national polity? If 
this be not so, then whither are we drifting? 

It is certain we are not tending toward order and 
security : for those social virtues we shall be solely de- 
pendent, as heretofore, upon the reserve of popular 
good sense, or be indebted for them to the intellectual 
inertia so common to masses of men. But how long 
can that generous forbearance, or that mental sluggish- 
ness, be counted on to endure? How long shall the 
doctrine of State rights, so confident of its approved 
strength, be able to suppress its disorganizing instincts? 
The answer is patent: until a day or an hour furnish a 
provocation or a temptation. Then, perhaps, will recur 
another series of bloody fields, broken hearts, ruined 
fortunes. And this miserable routine will be kept up, 
until American society shall perish in its own decom- 
positions, and American civilization be consigned to the 
receptacle of things lost on the earth, provided God, in 
his displeasure, should conclude to abandon us to our 
follies. 



192 CONSEQUENCES OF SOUTHERN INDEPENDENCE. 

We know the tendency of everything is to excess: 
hence the necessity for checks and guards. If State 
sovereignty, in the paroxysm of another freak, see 
proper to reassert its claim, shall the Confederate States 
ignore its own principles, deny its own arguments, and 
refuse the contumacious State or States the right of 
peaceable secession? If so, whence will it derive its 
authority? If not, what will bind together the States? 
The interests of the States are by no means identical. 
The pursuits of many of them are diiferent, and will 
call for corresponding differences of legislation. In 
short, there are diversities, however slight in appear- 
ances, sufficient to create antagonistic views on many 
social questions of the first importance. These antag- 
onisms will find their simplest and easiest solution in 
secession, where that doctrine is the recognized policy 
of the nation, and the voluntary obedience of the States 
is their only co-ordinating principle. 

These views and questions are not wjiolly hypotheti- 
cal: they are founded upon the nature of the Confed- 
eracy itself; and the consequences they suggest must 
flow necessarily from the establishment of such a sys- 
tem. But, in order to verify this assertion, I will now 
examine a little nearer into the real nature, meaning, 
and intent of this Confederation of States, and into 
other consequences likely to flow from its actual char- 
acter and purposes, as gathered from the design of the 
framers of it. In order, then, to arrive at a correct 
understanding of the true nature of the present arrange- 
ment, we must examine it by the light with which Mr. 
Calhoun has furnished us : we must construe it by his 
interpretation of the composition of the old United 



CONSEQUENCES OF SOUTHERN INDEPENDENCE. 193 

States: we must apply to it the pet phrases by which 
that gentleman attempted to fritter away the binding 
force of the Federal constitution; and in which design, 
as things have turned out, he was but too successful. 
These pet phrases of Mr. Calhoun were '^ constitutional 
compact," as being more accurately descriptive of the 
real character of the Federal constitution than any 
other phrase; and also the word "accede," as descrip- 
tive of the manner by which the States entered the old 
Union. These phrases, of course, were designed to 
cover a pet idea of that gentleman, which, interpreted, 
means this: That the several States formed a "consti- 
tutional compact,'" not a union, to which each State 
acceded as a separate sovereign community: that its 
sovereignty was not lost, or in least impaired, by this 
accession : that the States delegated to the General 
government certain specified powers, to be exercised 
jointly, reserving, at the same time, each State to itself 
the residuary mass of powers, to be exercised by its own 
separate government: that the General government was 
not made the final judge of the powers delegated to it: 
that it had no right to pass judgment on the constitu- 
tionality of congressional laws; but that this right be- 
longed to the States: that, as in all cases of compact 
among sovereign parties, without any common judge, 
each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well 
of the infraction of the compact as of the mode and 
measure of redress. 

According to Mr. Calhoun's political confession of 
faith, it was further declared: that the people of the 
United States never were united on the principle of the 
social compact: that they were never formed into one 



194 CONSEQUENCES OF SOUTHERN INDEPENDENCE. 

nation or people: that the States composing the Union 
always retained their sovereignty : that the allegiance of 
their citizens was never transferred to the General gov- 
ernment : that, in point of fact, the people of the United 
States never did owe allegiance to the government of 
the United States ; and that the States themselves never 
did part with the right of punishing treason, or with any 
other right of sovereignty. 

In using the phrase constitutional compact, the object 
of Mr. Calhoun was to make the name of the govern- 
ment accord with the above idea of it. But, in reality, 
the word constitutional^ in this connection, conveys no 
definite idea whatever: because a ^'compact'' is identi- 
cal with league, treaty, convention; they are all syno- 
nyms, alternative words, and cover the same meaning, 
describe the same thing, or at least things between which 
there is no essential difterence; and when those words 
are employed to describe the acts of sovereign States, 
we would find it difficult to understand what was meant 
by a '''•constitutional league or treaty between England 
and France, or a constitutional convention between Aus- 
tria and Russia." With equal propriety, we might speak 
of a '"''constitutional indenture of copartnership, a con- 
stitutional deed of conveyance, or a constitutional bill 
of exchange." 

As to the other term of Mr. Calhoun's phraseology, 
descriptive of the manner by which the States entered 
the old Union, that, too, was not without its peculiar 
significance. The converse of the phrase '''accede'' is 
secede: so that accessioii implies secession; and the 
right to accede carries with it the right to secede. The 
meaning of the word accede, when applied to political 



CONSEQUENCES OP SOUTHERN INDEPENDENCE. 195 

associations, is to become a party, by agreeing to the 
terms of a treaty, by one hitherto a stranger to it, as 
the accession of a king to a confederacy. In this con- 
nection, the word accede implies an act of sovereignty, 
and carries the same implication to its converse secede. 
Whether or not this phrase was correctly used by Mr. 
Calhoun, admits of doubt. At least, the propriety of 
its employment, in the case to which he applied it, was 
disputed, and, if not refuted, was ably discussed by Mr. 
Webster. The propriety of its application, however, 
to the present Confederacy admits of no doubt, and 
renders secession an indisputable right appertaining to 
the acceding parties; so far at least as mere verbal 
authority, or the rules of syntax, can confer that right. 
Such, then, according to Mr. Calhoun's political evan- 
gel, was the composition of the old United States, and 
such the nature of the old Federal constitution. Whether 
or not this be the true gospel, in the respect of the old 
association, I pretend not to decide here. In any case, 
whether true or false in theory, it has been terribly true 
in py-actice. It will be perceived that this interpretation 
renders the several States as absolutely sovereign and 
independent as ever were the ancient Greek Republics, 
or the modern Italian States; and that, according to 
such a construction, it would be as impossible to bind 
them steadfastly in one united empire, or to give to 
them a radical unity, as it was to unite its ancient Greek 
or modern Italian political congeners. The public acts, 
therefore, of a national government formed upon such 
a basis must necessarily be, to all intents and purposes, 
in the last resort and in the last analysis of no manner 
of effect whatever. Because, it is clear if the States 



196 CONSEQUENCES OF SOUTHERN INDEPENDENCE. 

should ever exercise their sovereign right of secession, 
which the J can do at any moment with or without cause 
alleged, there would then be no power left to execute 
treaties, pay debts, or fulfill any other obligation. And 
furthermore, if the General government should declare 
war, one State, exercising her sovereign right, might, if 
she saw proper to do so, make peace for herself: or if 
the General government should make peace, one State 
might continue the war on her own account. In such 
event, the General government, or the other States, 
would have no other means of redress, except by waging 
war on the contumacious State; but that would be equiv- 
alent to a dissolution of the Confederacy. 

Now, this was precisely the nature of the compact 
which existed between the States, under the old Arti- 
cles of Confederation, anterior to the adoption of the 
late Federal constitution. Under that Confederation, 
Congress issued its requisitions on the States for their 
quota of money for national purposes, and the States 
neglected them: there was no power of coercion but 
war; and Mr. Jefferson, in 1786-87, actually recom- 
mended this remedy to be tried. "There will be no 
money in the treasury," said he, "till the Confederacy 
shows its teeth;" and he suggested that a single frigate 
would soon levy, on the commerce of the delinquent 
State, the deficiency of its contribution. But this, 
again, would be war ; and it is evident, as Mr. Webster 
said, that a Confederacy could not long hold together 
which should be at war with its members. The present 
Southern Confederacy bears a very close resemblance, 
in many respects, to the old Confederation of the States ; 
and as such, it is a retrogression of nearly a century to 



CONSEQUENCES OF SOUTHERN INDEPENDENCE. 197 

a wretched condition of things from which the States 
escaped with great difficulty and trouble. 

A confederacy, then, is identical with a compact, a 
league, a convention. And a confederacy of sovereign 
communities, such as exists in the South, is nothing 
else but a subsisting or continuing treaty^ which rests 
for support solely on the plighted faith of the sovereign 
party. This, indeed, is substantially the definition 
which Mr. Webster gives of a confederacy ; and if his 
authority be not good, there is none better in the world. 
The Southern Confederacy, therefore, has no inherent 
power of its own to enforce a fulfillment or continuance 
of the treaty, longer than each of the States may see 
proper voluntarily to observe it. As sovereigns, the 
States are subject to no superior power: each must 
judge for itself of any alleged violation of the com- 
pact ; and if such violation be supposed to have occurred, 
each may adopt any mode or measure of redress which 
it shall think proper to employ. Such is the nature of 
a treaty, that " if a league between sovereign powers 
have no limitation as to the time of its duration, and 
contain nothing making it perpetual, it subsists only 
during the good pleasure of the parties, although no 
violation be complained of." Nay, even though the 
confederation or treaty be declared, by one of its stipu- 
lations, to be perpetual, still it is evident that it subsists 
only during the good pleasure of either of the sovereign 
parties, although no violation be complained of. It was 
on this principle that "the Congress of the United 
States, in 1798, declared null and void the treaty of 
alliance between the United States and France, though 
it professed to be a perpetual alliance." 

18 



198 CONSEQUENCES OF SOUTHERN INDEPENDENCE. 

If a violation of the terms of the confederacy be 
alleged, and the injuries be serious, or only pretended, 
the suffering party, being sovereign and sole judge of its 
own mode and method of redress, may indemnify itself 
by reprisals; by cruising against the property of the 
other members of the league; by authorizing captures, 
and making open war. If, then, it be well understood 
that such is the nature of the Southern Confederacy, 
and with past experience of the instability of such gov- 
ernments or leagues, how is it conceivable that the Con- 
federacy could even hope to obtain respect and credit 
abroad? What foreign power would enter into treaty 
with it? Who would lend it money? What guarantees 
could it give for the fulfillment of public treaties, for the 
payment of public debts, or for the continuance of its 
own existence during a day or an hour? Such a gov- 
ernment, now that we know its antecedents, would be 
unable to inspire the least sense of security; prudent 
citizens would not invest their means in real estate lying 
within its limits ; foreign capital would shun it, and 
domestic capital would flow out of it. In short, it is 
difficult to conceive how such a confederacy could hold 
together during one generation, or even one decade. 

In Church governments, where the only territory over 
which the exercise of authority is to be extended is the 
conscience, there any species of force is no doubt unwise, 
impolitic, and illegitimate, for convictions cannot be co- 
erced; in such case, voluntary obedience is the only rule 
of action. Or, if the assumptions of democracy were 
true; if all men were equal, equally wise and just, and 
their wisdom and justice were supreme and infallible, 
then compulsion would not be needed, nor would even 



CONSEQUENCES OF SOUTHERN INDEPENDENCE. 199 

government itself be needed. But as long as human 
nature remains as it is, civil government will always be 
obliged to employ force to make itself obeyed. There 
is no way of avoiding this ; it is a necessary consequence 
of human imperfection — an imperfection which resides 
as well in power as in society, in nations as in indi- 
viduals. Then, in the absence of any method of coer- 
cion, to suppose that a large number of States, with 
jealous ideas of sovereignty, scattered over a vast extent 
of territory, with greater or less diversity of interests, 
will remain confederated together for any considerable 
length of time, and yield a voluntary obedience to all 
the laws which democracy, in its spirit of excessive legis- 
lation, shall see proper to enact, is a dream as wild as 
was ever hatched in the brain of insanity. If there be 
no organized force within sufficient for that purpose, an 
external pressure, such as neighboring hostile States, 
might serve to bind the States together for awhile ; but 
that is a very doubtful principle of cohesion, and wholly 
unreliable. Under existing circumstances, therefore, a 
dissolution of the Confederacy, at no distant day, would 
seem to be inevitable; and whatever consequences, good 
or bad, are liable to result from such a state of social 
decomposition, are as certain to take place as if they 
were already an accomplished fact. That these conse- 
quences cannot be good, no arguments are needed to 
prove ; that they will be fraught with dire evils to human- 
ity and civilization, follows as a matter of course. 

But if, owing to the conservative element of slavery 
left in Southern society, a greater degree of permanence 
be secured to social order and a co-ordination of the 
States there, how will the case stand with the Northern 



200 CONSEQUENCES OF SOUTHERN INDEPENDENCE. 

tier of States? As soon as the integrity of the Union 
shall have been violated by the contemplated division, 
the contagion will have begun, the force of example will 
be strong, new interests will solicit new combinations, 
and the passions and follies of men, under the noxious 
inspiration of the democratic principles, will again be 
too strong for the dictates of reason and common sense. 
Under these conditions, the social affinities remaining in 
the North would scarcely be sufficient to overcome the 
various antagonisms and disorganizing influences which 
would be forever repelling the States from each other. 
At first, the States would no doubt slough ofi" in sections. 
The Northwestern States could easily imagine that they 
have few interests in common with the New England 
States; and there are many hostile influences which 
would tend to detach them from each other. The Pa- 
cific States are too far off to derive much benefit from 
an adhesion to any portion of the old Union which might 
hang together; and, in their case, there are geographical 
divisions, and many natural causes, which might suggest 
the propriety of a separate national independence. In 
the end, in all probability, only alliances offensive and 
defensive would be entered into by the States, as be- 
tween foreign nations ; and the drama of the little Greek 
Republics of antiquity, with its melancholy catastrophe, 
would be re-enacted here on a somewhat enlarged thea- 
ter. If the parts of Appelles, Demosthenes, Pericles, 
and other divine masters of Grecian Art, Eloquence, 
and War, could be reproduced also, the evil would not 
be wholly uncompensated. 

Now, I do not pretend to say that the recurrence of 
such a state of things is even possible, much less proba- 



CONSEQUENCES OF SOUTHERN INDEPENDENCE. 201 

ble: because the nature of modern civilization happily 
forbids it; and the nature of modern civilization, with 
equal felicity, forbids also the first division, or any divi- 
sion whatever. I am only pointing out the tendency of 
the ideas engaged in this movement, — ideas which seem 
to rule the Southern mind wholly as to its social plans 
for the future, and of whose tendencies, or of the im- 
possibility of their practical achievement, it appears to 
be as ignorant as if it were set three thousand years 
back, at the commencement of History, with no Past to 
enlighten it. In order to expose mqre fully yet the 
deceptive character of those ideas, and discover whither 
we are drifting, if Providence should abandon us to our 
own guidance, I will continue the perspective a little 
further. 

Assuming, then, that the integrity of each of the two 
Republics will be preserved, that the unity of each will 
remain unbroken, and no further decompositions take 
place after the first division : how, in that case, are their 
international relations to be regulated? Will hostilities 
cease suddenly and forever with the subsidence of pres- 
ent disturbances ? Will each nation be permitted to 
actualize in peace its own social ideas, and to develop 
undisturbed a civilization that shall contradict the idio- 
syncrasies or shock the sensibilities of the other ? Will 
that great element of modern civilization, commerce, by 
its rivalries, its wondrous activity, its myriad individual 
interests, throw no obstacles in the way of peaceable 
relations? There are no natural divisions — no British 
Channel, no Alps, no Pyrenees, no Mediterranean, Bal- 
tic, or Black Seas, no Chersonese, no Bosphorus, no 
Greek and Italian Peninsulas, or, in their absence, no 

18* 



202 CONSEQUENCES OF SOUTHERN INDEPENDENCE. 

Chinese Wall or other artificial barrier sufficient to local- 
ize the two nations and protect them from each other. 
Everywhere, on the proposed line of division, they touch, 
and, in a manner, surround each other. Everywhere 
the country is open to invasion, and invites aggression. 
In many places the two frontiers run into each other 
and interlock, as if protesting, by their friendly em- 
brace, against the political separation of that which 
God hath joined together. The same protest is made, 
with still more emphasis, by the Mississippi River : that 
stream binds the Mississippi Valley indissolubly, as if 
with bands of iron and brass; while it flows to the Gulf 
of Mexico, it will bear upon its bosom the tide of war, 
and its waves will redden with the blood of hostile 
armies, unless the geographical unity of its great valley 
unite into one nation the peoples who inhabit its upper 
and lower shores. And, finally, the customs' regula- 
tions, along an almost boundless inland frontier, thus 
interlaced, will not diminish the chances of collision: 
nor will those social parasites, the demagogues, simplify 
relations already too complex for international tran- 
quillity. 

If the institution of slavery, the immediate occasion 
of the war and the separation, was deemed insecure in 
the old Union, when the government of a mighty nation 
and a thousand material interests were pledged to its 
protection, what will be its condition when those guards, 
feeble as they may have been considered, are withdrawn 
from around it? Will our slaves escape less into the 
free States, now become a foreign, perhaps a hostile, 
nation ? or will the Federal Congress pass other fugitive 
slave laws for their restitution ? 



SECESSION. 203 

These are all questions which can arise only after the 
accomplishment of a revolution. While the Union lasts, 
they do not disturb us; they are then no questions at 
all ; they spring up to startle and haunt us only from 
its grave. They are the dragon's teeth which we have 
sown; and if we succeed in our design, they will make 
the land bristle with bayonets, and yield us only the 
bloody harvests of war and death. 

Secession. 

The above notice of the slavery question in this con- 
nection leads us to a review of the conduct of the South- 
ern people in their adoption of secession as a remedy for 
their real or fancied wrongs. A very slight examination 
will suffice to show how far they were or were not justi- 
fied in the employment of a measure, which has turned 
out to be so disastrous, and which, instead of curing, 
has magnified the evil, and made that which was bad 
enough before a thousand times worse. The same ex- 
amination will disclose, too, to what extent the principles 
of democracy have contributed, by their demoralization 
of the mind of Southern society, to the precipitation of 
the present crisis. 

Whatever else may be said of it, the Federal constitu- 
tion was at least not inimical to Southern interests : on 
the contrary, it did all it could do to protect the rights 
of the slave States. If some of the Northern States, by 
factious legislation, violated in effect one of its solemn 
provisions, which was of peculiar interest to the South, 
it was no fault of the constitution; and the Federal gov- 
ernment, up to the day and hour of secession, was inno- 



204 SECESSION. 

cent of any bad faith on the slavery question. To the 
best of its abilities, it had always guarded the rights of 
property in the South as well as in the North ; and 
those clauses of the constitution which referred directly 
to the subject of slavery were perhaps the only import- 
ant ones which had entirely escaped the impingement 
of executive aggression. While, on all other questions 
of moment, the General government had been accused 
of attempts to trespass upon the constitution, and to 
stretch its authority beyond the warrant of that instru- 
ment, not the slightest imputation of Punic faith had 
ever attached to it on the subject of slavery. Amid the 
storms raised by the abolitionists, the Federal govern- 
ment, whether the President came from the North or 
South, had ever stood as firm as a rock. Against that 
indomitable barrier the waves of fanaticism had always 
broken themselves to pieces, and lay quelled at its base. 
When fanaticism, thus rebuked, turned its attention to 
the States, and was seducing some of them into its em- 
braces, Congress, at the solicitation of the South, hast- 
ened to pass all the laws the latter required to strengthen 
the constitution and protect slavery. It was so well 
understood by the earnest abolitionists that the Federal 
constitution and Federal government were the only lions 
in their path, that they deemed their removal a prerequi- 
site of success, and advocated a dissolution of the Union 
for that express purpose. By an infatuation which would 
almost seem to have been the work of the gods, the South 
rushed upon its destiny, and did that for its enemies 
which they could scarcely have ever done for themselves 
at all. Those abolitionists, therefore, who understand 
their business and the means best adapted to their trade, 



SECESSION. 205 

rejoice at this madness of the South, and hail secession 
as a sure earnest of success. They make no disguise of 
their satisfaction, and are as much opposed to recon- 
struction, until their abolition work is accomplished, as 
the South itself can be. 

In no correct sense could the election of Mr. Lincoln 
have been regarded as a triumph of abolitionism proper. 
He was himself no abolitionist : he was a free-soiler only. 
The abolitionists could not have elected a candidate of 
their own : they therefore did the next best thing in 
their power — they coalesced with the free-soilers ; and 
by their alliance did that for the free- soil candidate 
which the free-soil party could not have done by itself. 
However strong may be the affinity between the two 
political sects, the Abolitionists and Republicans, they 
are so far from being identical in sentiments or meas- 
ures that many extreme abolitionists refused to cast 
their votes for Mr. Lincoln, and to this day withhold 
their confidence from him. 

In the absence of any positive information on that 
subject, it would be sheer folly to speculate as to what 
might have been the policy or the general tendency of 
Mr. Lincoln's administration, if the South, hurried on 
by an excited imagination, anticipating what of evil it 
knew not, and prejudging Mr. Lincoln's course, had not, 
by its premature action, forced him, perhaps against his 
wishes, wholly into the arms of the abolitionists. If any 
faith is to be attached to Mr. Lincoln's own declarations, 
and to the plain wording of the platform on which he 
was elected, nothing is left to conjecture on that subject. 
But secession, it seems, like Satan reproving sin, refuses 
to believe anything abolitionism can say, when the latter 
denies its evil intentions. 



206 SECESSION. 

Rejecting, then, all such disclaimers on the part of 
Lincoln and the abolitionists as wholly unreliable, when 
weighed against the passions of fanaticism, and reason- 
ing solely from presumptive evidence, we are still forced, 
from whatever point of view we may look at it, into con- 
clusions adverse to the policy of secession. That meas- 
ure, whether regarded as a means of defense against real 
or supposed injuries, or as the expression of an abstract 
political principle, is equally indefensible. On purely 
moral grounds, it is still more reprehensible. Like abo- 
litionism, it is a species of political fanaticism, thrown 
off by the disorganizing tendencies of the democratic 
principles; and as such it was bound to have its day of 
grace, to reach its point of culmination, to commit its 
maximum of evil, and then sink in darkness forever. 

But to resume our line of argument. It is hardly 
conceivable that, with the plain letter of the constitu- 
tion before him, and his solemn oath to support it, Mr. 
Lincoln could have been so far recreant to the obliga- 
tions of honor and duty as to have committed a double 
crime in a single act by violating the one at the expense 
of the other; for a violation of the constitution would 
have been a violation of his oath, a sacrifice of both duty 
and honor at one and the same time. And thus to trea- 
son he would have added perjury for no other conceiv- 
able reason than to subserve the nefarious ends of a 
reckless party, in whose prejudices he did not partici- 
pate, and of whose fanaticism he did not partake. They 
w^ho believe oaths and duties are so easily violated, must 
themselves have very loose notions of such obligations, 
and judge others from their own consciences. 

It is no answer to this argument to point to Mr. Lin- 



SECESSION. 207 

coin's alleged unconstitutional acts since his inaugura- 
tion. In the first place, for those acts, if they be uncon- 
stitutional, it is well known he shelters himself under the 
plea of " military necessity," — a plea which, in cases of 
flagrant war, is recognized as being well laid: in any 
case, whether right or wrong, it is a plea for which seces- 
sion itself is directly responsible, for it alone furnished 
him with it. In the second place, it is not at all prob- 
able that, but for the previous action of the South an- 
ticipating his administration, and perhaps WTongly pre- 
judging it, he would have so completely surrendered 
himself to the guidance of the abolitionists, whose active 
support he deemed himself forced, by the necessities of 
his situation, to procure at any price. True, if this 
motive be well charged against him, his conduct is inde- 
fensible upon any such ground : none but a weak-minded 
man, in a case of that kind, where his duty lay plain be- 
fore him, would have ignored its dictates, and swerved 
Trom the path of rectitude, under the plea of necessity. 
Wisdom and virtue combined would have decided very 
differently ; and the country has the right to look for 
this combination in one who is the elect, the choicest 
mind, of a great nation of thirty millions of population. 
Evil never does anything right. There can be no 
doubt that Mr. Lincoln's administration, since its unre- 
served surrender to abolitionism, has been a most vicious 
one, and its policy the very worst that could have been 
adopted: of all other policies, it was the one least 
capable of bringing the war to a speedy and happy 
termination ; and the one best adapted to prolong it to 
the latest period. No other line of conduct was so well 
qualified to deepen the malignity of the strife, to cause 



208 SECESSION. 

the greatest amount of slaughter, to bring about so 
much unnecessary individual suffering and ruin without 
any compensating advantage, to plant in the hearts of 
men those bitter hatreds, that spirit of revenge, which, 
for the time being, transfer hell to earth, convert men 
into fiends, and render reconciliation that much more 
difficult and distant. 

But, notwithstanding all this, secession is not the 
proper party to bring accusations against abolitionism 
on the score of unconstitutionality or any other vice : its 
own huge crimes disqualify it from becoming a public 
accuser: before it can consistently arraign the sins of 
others, it must purge itself of its own darker ones. 
Abolitionism and secession must, both of them, be con- 
sidered in no other light than as two evil principles in 
conflict, for which the democratic principles are directly 
responsible ; and it is devoutly to be hoped they will 
end the strife by mutually destroying each other, when 
honesty may stand some chance to come by its own. It 
is not to justify the crimes of one of these principles 
by enumerating the faults of the other that this book 
is written, but to demonstrate how wantonly wicked 
both of them are, and yet how inevitable they were as 
logical sequences of the fundamental principles of gov- 
ernment. As secession is now under review, my object 
is to show that, so far from having a legitimate origin, 
it was justified neither by facts, nor by any presump- 
tive evidence, nor by any sound method of hypothetical 
reasoning : that it was called into action by no urgent 
necessity: that no immediate or even an early pros- 
pective danger threatened the interest it rushed to pro- 
tect ; but that it hurled the country into war gratuitously, 



SECESSION. 209 

or from mistaken views, or from any motives save those 
which were good and true. 

There is a wide difference between a party out of 
office, and the same party in office. It is seldom that 
the extreme measures advocated by an opposition are 
carried into practice when the responsibility which at- 
taches to power is thrown upon its leaders. The abstract 
sentiment of abolitionism has long ago been converted 
by the demagogues into a mere political cry, an elec- 
tioneering watchword, with no other meaning than be- 
longs to all such shibboleths of party. However a few 
misguided fanatics may still cling to its moral sense, its 
original purpose, the demagogues use it only as a hobby 
on which to ride into power. Once there, the ambition 
of such persons is generally gratified; and their only 
after-care is to sustain themselves in their seats. To 
this end, they suddenly become very conservative, in 
order to deprecate as much as possible the violence of 
opposition, and because they must consider well the 
practicability of measures for which they are directly 
responsible, and which, unless they be eminently just 
and feasible, may work their own downfall. Men in 
power, in a government like this, soon learn the neces- 
sity of moderation and justice. A very short time, 
under the pressure of official responsibility, may have 
sufficed to tone down the vehemence of abolition frenzy 
into an eminently conservative administration. In all 
probability, office would have been the grave of aboli- 
tionism; and its influence, as a disturbing element of 
politics, might have ceased with its accession to power, 
if a fair and peaceable trial had been granted it, or if 

19 



210 SECESSION. 

its passions had not been roused bj the embarrassments 
of a terrible war like this. 

But this is arguing without the record, and wide of 
the mark. The actual case is much stronger. The 
simple facts are shortly these: 1st. The platform on 
which Mr. Lincoln was elected recognized the consti- 
tutionality of slavery, and denied any intention of in- 
terfering with it in States where it already existed. 
2d. Mr. Lincoln, though elected by the aid of the aboli- 
tion vote, was himself no Abolitionist. 3d. If Southern 
members had kept their seats, the Abolitionists would 
have been so far in the minority in Congress that they 
would have been unable, even if they had desired, to 
do the least harm to slavery. 4th. During the last ses- 
sion of the 36th Congress, held under the administration 
of Mr. Buchanan, Southern members were repeatedly 
urged to accept constitutional amendments, by two- 
thirds votes of both Houses, which would secure slavery 
against the possibility of future disturbance, except by 
revolution. These generous concessions were refused 
by the Southern delegation. 

The first and second of the above statements require 
no further comment; the third and fourth call for some 
additional notice and elucidation by proof. To the third 
it was objected, that the abolition party had grown so 
rapidly that, from an insignificant faction a few years 
ago, it had already expanded into the controlling power 
of the government; that this increase of strength was 
daily progressing; that it was fast absorbing the whole 
North; that there was no real sympathy in the breast 
of any man north of Mason and Dixon's line in favor 
of slavery or the South; that there was an innate hos- 



SECESSION. 211 

tility between the U\o sections which was inextinguish- 
able; that very soon abolitionism would be in a position 
to dictate its ideas to the nation ; that it would be mad- 
ness for the South to wait until the enemy was in actual 
possession of the government; that the property of the 
South would be ultimately confiscated by it, unless the 
former sought timely safety in secession, which was the 
only protection she had for her rights against the slow 
but sure abrasions of abolition aggression. 

To these objections all I have to say is, they were 
not verified by facts. At the time they were made, 
abolitionism was not the controlling power of the gov- 
ernment: if it has become so since, temporarily and for 
a special purpose, it is because secession made it so. So 
far from increasing with such rapidity as to threaten an 
early absorption of the entire North, it is now matter 
of history that at the first congressional election, after 
Mr. Lincoln's inauguration, the Abolitionists were de- 
feated in every Northern State in which elections were 
held. If the tide of Northern votes has since turned 
in favor of the government, it is because the stubborn 
resistance of the South has made it necessary to the 
integrity of the Union, and to the very existence of the 
North itself, to suppress the rebellion at any price. But 
it is the propriety and necessity of secession as a re- 
medial measure at the time of its adoption which I am 
now discussing, and not the propriety or necessity of 
the means employed by the Federal government, and 
sanctioned by the North, for its suppression. 

I now approach the fourth and last of the above state- 
ments ; and in order to show the Southern people who 
were their real enemies, and who the authors of their 



212 SECESSION. 

present ruin, I propose to place this controversy in a 
light still more clear, and to answer all hypothetical ob- 
jections by facts which are of record and not to be dis- 
puted or argued about. For this purpose I shall run over 
the journals of the last session of Congress held under 
Mr. Buchanan's administration, and extract from them 
everything relating to this matter. The review will dis- 
close to the Southern people how effectually they allowed 
themselves to be deluded by their treacherous servants. 
Whether the delusion were willingly or unwillingly em- 
braced; whether the people were deceived because they 
wished to be deceived; and whether, if they had been 
all the time well advised of what was going on, they 
would or would not have supported their representatives 
in the course they pursued, are questions for themselves 
to answer to their own consciences. I shall acquit my 
duty by revealing some of the secrets of that important 
session of Congress, which, to my certain knowledge, 
were known to very few persons in the South at the 
time of their occurrence. The Southern press, to its 
eternal disgrace, partook of the treason of her congres- 
sional demagogues, and was silent then, when, of all 
times, it ought to have been most faithfully communi- 
cative. 

The last session of the 36th Congress assembled on 
the 3d day of December, 1860. During that session, or 
rather on that day, the Senate was composed of twenty- 
five Abolition and Republican members on one side, and 
thirty-five Southern and Northern conservative mem- 
bers on the other side. The Abolitionists and Repub- 
licans were so far from being identical, that I shall not 
designate them by one name, nor class them as one 



SECESSION. 213 

party. Indeed, so far from voting together on all 
questions touching Southern interests, it will be seen 
that the Republicans generally voted against their Abo- 
lition allies. The Southern and Northern conservative 
members, on the contrary, were, on all such questions, 
a unit. The Northern Democrats uniformly voted with 
the South on all matters touching her interests, and 
were prepared to go almost any lengths to meet her 
wishes. 

It will be seen, then, by this classification, that the 
South had, on her side, a clear majority of ten in the 
Senate; and if the Republicans who voted with her on 
many important questions be counted, the majority was 
much greater, sufficiently great indeed to have carried 
by a two-thirds vote any amendment of the constitu- 
tion which the South might have desired for the better 
security of slavery. In the House of Representatives 
her majority was proportionately quite as large; and 
there, too, the same phenomenon on the part of the Re- 
publicans was repeated. To say, therefore, that the 
South, during this session of Congress, was unable to 
procure the passage of any law, or compromise, or con- 
cession, or amendment of the constitution she miojht 
have asked for, is simply preposterous. It will be seen, 
as we advance, that the only difficulty was to get her 
representatives to accept of any such measures, even 
when, in the friendly spirit of compromise, they were 
good-naturedly thrust upon them in spite of all their 
efforts to the contrary. All that Southern members 
had to do, as facts will prove, was to propose the meas- 
ures most agreeable to them, and they would instantly 
have passed into laws; or, if required, they would have 

19* 



214 SECESSION. 

been engrafted, by a two-thirds vote of both Houses, 
into the constitution of the United States. But so far 
from desiring such compromises, all the efforts of South- 
ern representatives were directed, as I shall show, to 
defeat every measure which was proposed for the benefit 
of the South. Yet such was the temper of Congress, 
that many resolutions, calculated to quiet the fears of 
the South, were offered and passed, in spite of all the 
treacherous schemes of Southern members to suppress 
them. 

Such, then, was the composition, and such the con- 
ciliatory spirit of the 36th Congress, when, early in the 
session, Mr. Sherman, of Ohio, offered, in the House 
of Representatives, the following resolution, which was 
passed by an overwhelming majority : — 

''Resolved, That neither Congress, nor the people, 
nor governments of the non-slaveholding States have 
the right to legislate upon or interfere with slavery in 
any of the slaveholding States of the Union." 

On this occasion, many Republicans voted for the reso- 
lution; the Abolitionists proper all voted against it; and 
many Southern members refused to vote at all. The 
silent members offered as a plea for their contumacy, 
that the resolution was nothing but a law of Congress, 
and as such was liable to be repealed at any moment. 
To meet this objection, Mr. Corwin, of Ohio, an ardent 
Republican, proposed to engraft into the constitution, 
by a two-thirds vote of Congress, an amendment dis- 
tinctly forbidding any Northern State or Congress from 
interfering, in any manner whatever, with slavery in 
the Southern States. This proposition was adopted, 
by a two-thirds vote, in the House of Representatives; 



SECESSION. 215 

and, but for the dissolution of the Union "which took 
place, would this day have been a part and parcel of 
the constitution of the United States. 

On the 4th day of December, 1860, the day after 
Congress met, Mr. Buchanan, according to usage, deliv- 
ered his Annual Message to both Houses of Congress. 
A large portion of his Message was devoted to what he 
called the distracted state of the country. Mr. Boteler, 
of Virginia, immediately moved that so much of the 
President's Message as related to the distracted state 
of the country be referred to a select committee of one 
from each State, which was agreed to. Mr. Hawkins, 
of Florida, as soon as his name was announced, arose 
and asked to be excused, saying that Florida wanted 
no compromise. Seven days later, Mr. Boyce, of South 
Carolina, asked to be excused for the same reason. 
Later in the session, Reuben Davis, of Mississippi, asked 
to be excused, because Mississippi wanted no compro- 
mise. Notwithstanding these defections, the committee 
proceeded to the discharge of its duties; and through 
Mr. Corwin, its chairman, reported the following propo- 
sitions: — 

1. A joint resolution to amend the constitution, by 
providing that no future amendment be adopted inter- 
fering with slavery in the States without i\\e consent of 
all parties. 

2. A bill enabling the people of New Mexico to form 
a constitution, and be admitted into the Union, with or 
without slavery. 

3. A bill to amend the fugitive slave law, by remov- 
ing the trial of the alleged fugitive from the jurisdiction 
of the State to which he had escaped, to the United 



216 SECESSION. 

States Court of the State from which he is charged to 
have fled. 

These resolutions were deemed to have embraced every 
concession the South could desire. Nothing seemed 
wanting to render slavery as secure as it was possible 
to make it. Laws had already been passed, granting 
to all citizens of the United States the right of removing 
with their property to the territories, defining slaves to 
be property/, and guaranteeing protection to the owners. 

The session was far advanced when the report came 
up for consideration. Many of the States had already 
seceded; and as each State left the Union, its repre- 
sentatives retired from Congress ; comparatively few 
Southern members, therefore, occupied their seats when 
the report was called up. When first offered to the vote 
of the House, the report failed of receiving the requisite 
two-thirds majority to make it a clause of the constitu- 
tion, there being 129 votes cast for it, and 70 against it. 
Subsequently, however, it was called up for reconsider- 
ation, and this time received the constitutional sanction 
of the House, having been passed by a two-thirds vote 
of 133 for it, to 6b against it; 48 Republicans voting for 
it, all the Abolitionists voting against it, and few South- 
ern members voting at all. On the second of March, 
the last day but one of the session, it also passed the 
Senate — yeas 24, nays 12 — 12 Republicans voting for 
it, all the Abolitionists voting against it, and so many of 
the Southern States having seceded that there were not 
enough members left to act upon an amendment of the 
constitution to make it binding. 

The bill to organize New Mexico as a State, allowing 
her to come into the Union with or without slavery, was 



SECESSION. 21T 

laid upon the table by the contrivance of Southern mem- 
bers and their Northern friends — Mr. Vallandigham and 
his party and every Southern member then in the House 
voting to kill the bill by laying it on the table. 

The bill to amend the fugitive slave law was passed 
by a vote of 92 yeas to 82 nays ; 65 Repubhcans voting 
for the bill, all the Abolitionists voting against it, and 
very few Southern members either voting at all, or voting 
against it. The bill, however, failed to become a law for 
the want of time to consider it in the Senate. 

The history of the Crittenden Compromise exhibits 
the same disingenuousness on the part of the representa- 
tives of the cotton States, and discloses the absurdity of 
attempting a reconciliation, where one party was prede- 
termined against it on any conditions whatever. On the 
3d of January, 1861, Mr. Crittenden introduced in the 
Senate his famous resolution, which, in substance, was 
nothing more than a restoration of the old Missouri 
Compromise line of 36° 30', north of which slavery 
should be prohibited, and south of which slavery should 
be established. On the 14th of January, 1861, Mr. 
Clark, of New Hampshire, moved an amendment to Mr. 
Crittenden's resolution, striking out all after the word 
''resolved^'" and inserting, "that the provisions of the 
constitution, as they now are, are sufficient to maintain 
the unity of the Repubhc and the peace of the country." 
It was the vote to be taken on this amendment which 
was to decide the fate of the Compromise; and the his- 
tory of this vote, and its sequel, clearly reveal the pre- 
concerted plan and purpose of the Southern conspirators 
in Congress. On the nineteenth of January Clark's 
amendment was put to the vote. Just previous to taking 



218 SECESSION. 

the vote, a resolution to adjourn was negatived by yeas 
and nays — yeas 25, all Republicans and Abolitionists ; 
nays 30, all Northern Democrats and Southern men — 
Mr. Douglas being unavoidably absent. This vote 
showed the presence of 5b Senators in the Senate 
Chamber, when the question, by yeas and nays, was 
taken on Clark's amendment, which resulted as follows : 
yeas 25, nays 23, being 7 votes less than on the previ- 
ous vote for adjournment. The solution of this apparent 
anomaly is very simple: six Southern Senators sat in 
their seats, refusing to vote, and purposely allowing 
Clark's amendment to be agreed to, and the Compro- 
mise to be defeated, when they could just as easily have 
turned the scales the other way. The silent members 
were Slidell, of Louisiana ; Benjamin, of Louisiana ; 
Hemphill, of Texas; Iverson, of Georgia; Johnson, of 
Arkansas; Wigfall, of Texas. No sooner was the re- 
sult announced to the Senate than it was flying over the 
wires, rousing the indignation of the Southern people 
with the startling intelligence that the North had refused 
to make any compromise, and that slavery was doomed. 
The consequences which were expected to follow this 
announcement were the immediate secession of still re- 
luctant States; and the expectation was realized. 

It would not be difficult to multiply similar evidences 
of treachery on the part of Southern demagogues in 
Congress, if indeed that can be called treachery where, 
for anything I know to the contrary, a majority of their 
constituents may have been willing victims, and would 
have applauded the unworthy artifices of the former if 
they had been known to them. But I have said enough 
to betray as well the animus of the Southern delegation 



SECESSION. 219 

as the friendly disposition toward the South of Northern 
members, not even excepting Republicans, the more im- 
mediate partisans of Mr. Lincoln, the President elect. 
It is clear, therefore, from this expos^, that when seces- 
sion began there was no immediate or prospective danger 
threatening Southern interests, except from our own 
madness; and it is as certain as anything can be that, 
but for that madness, slavery would have gone as safely 
through Mr. Lincoln's administration as it had gone 
through that of Mr. Buchanan or any other. Slavery 
never rested on a firmer foundation than at the com- 
mencement of this war, which was inaugurated avowedly 
for the purpose of perpetuating it ; but which, by a kind 
of retribution, apparently directed by Heaven, has de- 
stroyed it instead. It was indeed as secure as it was 
possible to make it under our form of government. 

But therein precisely lay the main difficulty. The 
cause of our woes lurked in the form of our government. 
Without, perhaps, any man being able to account to 
himself satisfactorily for his want of faith, experience 
taught us all to feel^ rather than to icnderstand, the 
danger that threatened us from that quarter — a danger 
not the less fearful because vague and undefined and 
not fully understood. The South had some knowledge 
of the tumultuous, wild, capricious, and dangerous opin- 
ions of the Northern States, — their mobs, confusion, out- 
breaks, and incendiary doctrines, — which left nothing 
sacred, nothing secure, and which threatened the sta- 
bility of all those pillars of society upon which man had 
been accustomed to lean in hope and safety: these dan- 
gerous influences the South had long suspected, and as 
long dreaded; she knew they must and would increase 



220 SECESSION. 

with the progress of time and the growth of population ; 
she knew that population at the North was increasing 
with fearful rapidity, and that the bulk of that increase 
was of a character to render the licentious dogmas of 
democracy that much more disorganizing. Under these 
circumstances, she felt that a storm of some sort was 
brewing, and that her only safety was to be sought and 
found in her own conservative institutions. Where else 
could she hope to find protection from so many disor- 
ganizing influences? What was there in the nature of 
the Federal government calculated to inspire confidence 
that, in the hour of peril, it would be able to come to 
her rescue? The South knew that the government of 
the United States was a government of the numerical 
majority; that such a government must become, had 
already become, a government of party; and that in 
process of time that party must become, had already 
become, sectional, and influenced by sectional ideas and 
sectional interests. Under such conditions, with the 
doctrines of unbounded freedom of inquiry, of absolute 
popular sovereignty, universal suffrage, and universal 
equality as its fundamental principles, there was in the 
Southern mind a vague dread, an undefined apprehen- 
sion of the utter insufiiciency of the guarantees of the 
constitution, whenever the majority, in its character of 
absolute sovereignty, saw proper to break through its 
meshes. True, the majority was with the South to-day, 
but it was perhaps more from courtesy or policy than 
because it was real, and was liable at any moment to 
shift against her. The very facility with which amend- 
ments to the constitution were proposed and carried in 
her favor, was calculated to inspire dread rather than to 
reassure her. 



SECESSION. 221 

Let us contemplate, for one moment, the melancholy 
instance of this superstitious fear which was afforded by 
the conduct of the Southern delegation during the last 
session of the 36th Congress. There sat in that fatal 
Congress, during that disastrous session, the bare nucleus 
of a party, a mere faction, few in numbers, stern as a 
decree of fate, and more appalling to Southern imagina- 
tions than the Archfiend himself, if he had just risen 
from Tophet to confront them. The Abolitionists, numer- 
ically insignificant as they then were, and deriving their 
chief importance from association with a larger faction, 
were regarded as composing the only growing party of 
the country, and as likely to be, at no distant day, the 
arbiters of the nation's destiny. Their late alliance 
with the Republicans, and the joint success they had 
just achieved, seemed to forestall their natural increase, 
and by a single bound to place them at once in posses- 
sion of government. Animated by a fanaticism which, 
in one form or another, had always carried desolation 
over the earth and strewed the pages of history with 
narratives of wreck and ruin, they were deemed to be 
as resistless as they were known to be inexorable ; hence 
the interest which was attached to their vote, and the 
terror which was felt at the uncompromising attitude of 
their hostility. As their vote never swerved in a single 
instance from their principles, and was steadily cast in 
opposition to every measure calculated to favor slavery. 
Southern members were deaf and blind to everything 
else transpiring around, and reckless of the immense 
majorities showered upon them, on all occasions, for 
their exclusive benefit. They made no account of the 

20 



222 SECESSION. 

kind offices of their Northern friends to allay their fears. 
They heard nothing, saw nothing, but the "raw-head- 
and-bloody-bones " that sat before them and frowned 
upon their cause. They only knew the Abolitionists 
conceded nothing; all else was naught to them. This 
was childish terror, a senseless panic, which was inex- 
cusable if it were real, and their conduct was still more 
reprehensible if it were affected. Nothing could be more 
erroneous than the opinions thus entertained of the then 
importance of the Abolitionists ; or more groundless than 
the fears of the South, anticipating a future danger never 
likely to approach except by reason of her own folly. 
But, alas! how unfit were such men as Benjamin and 
Slidell, and others of that ilk, to encounter the horrid 
phantom their distempered imaginations had conjured 
up, or to meet in combat the feeble enemy into whose 
merciless power their fears or their treason contributed 
to deliver, naked and defenseless, a great and prosperous 
people ! 

How strange and inexplicable, except upon the grounds 
I have taken, has been the change so suddenly wrought 
in the peaceable relations of this country ! As in the 
days of Nullification, there were no oppressions experi- 
enced under the old Union calling for an extreme meas- 
ure like this : there were no invasions of public liberty, 
no ruin to private happiness, no long list of rights vio- 
lated, or wrongs unredressed, to justify to history this 
wanton assault upon the free constitution of a free 
nation. At the time this work of dissolution and de- 
struction was begun, the whole land lay smiling in peace 
and rejoicing in plenty. A general and high prosperity 
pervaded the country; and the South participated to 



SECESSION. 223 

the full in all those evidences of material abundance and 
national progress. 

Assuredly, under such conditions, the South should 
not have been the first to throw away a constitution 
which, like the shield of Achilles, covered her all over, 
from head to foot ; and which, whatever it might become 
thereafter, was at least impervious at that time. She 
should have held fast to that instrument as long as a 
fragment of it was left sufficient to hold by. If the 
constitution had to be violated, let others, if they chose 
to do so, commit the breach, and bear the responsibility 
of the guilty deed. So long as the constitution lasted, 
the South was in no danger; her interests could be 
reached only over its ruins; and beneath those ruins, 
by whomsoever caused, her society must be buried for- 
ever. It is a clear case, therefore, if she wished to pre- 
serve her institutions, that her battles, whether in hall 
or field, ought to have been fought under cover of its 
sacred aegis: she ought to have spent her last breath, 
her last drop of blood, if need were, in its defense ; for, 
after Heaven, that constitution and the old flag were 
the only safeguards she possessed on this earth. While 
the whole world else was banded against her institution, 
the Federal constitution and the Federal government 
were straining every nerve for its protection. Nothing 
was wanting, on the part of her congressional repre- 
sentatives, but a little wise and temperate patriotism, a 
little courageous virtue, the heroism of conscious recti- 
tude, to face the frowning specter which overcame them 
like the dread shadow of the future, and it would have 
vanished into thin air, never again perhaps to have been 
heard of. 



224 SECESSION. 

By this judicious course, this patriotic and heroic 
conduct, four years would have been gained, perhaps 
many four years, which would have been of immense 
value to the South. If, after that epoch, the increase 
of the abolition vote had realized her fears, and given 
to that party a numerical preponderance which nothing 
else could have countervailed; and if fanaticism had at 
last broken down the bulwarks of the constitution, and 
committed an overt act of aggression against the South, 
through the constituted authorities of the General gov- 
ernment, — then, in that case, the South would have been 
rendered morally and physically invincible, even in the 
questionable method of redress she so prematurely 
adopted. But even then she ought to have fought for 
the constitution, not against it: with that instrument 
in her hands, and beneath the old consecrated banner 
of the nation, it was clearly her policy and her duty to 
have gone forth as the peculiar champion of the Union, 
the constitution, and her rights under them. From 
such a vantage-ground, no argument, no after-reflection, 
no sober second thoughts could have driven her. She 
would then have united not only all the slave States in 
one unanimous and simultaneous coalition, but, against 
a provocation so indisputable, she would have enlisted 
the sympathies, perhaps the co-operation, certainly the 
approval, of Northern conservatives and the wise and 
just of the whole world. Against an opposing front so 
formidable, it is hardly probable this war would have 
been waged at all; but a peaceable revolution instead 
might have rectified all causes of complaint, and estab- 
lished the integrity of the Union, upon an enduring 
basis, for an indefinite period to come. 



SECESSION. 225 

Such a course, however, so patriotic and so judicious, 
would have gone far to demonstrate the capacity of the 
people for self-government, and to justify the establish- 
ment of society upon the basis of an exclusive democ- 
racy and the federative system. But the truth was, 
and is, that not one in ten of the Southern people 
knew, or yet knows, anything of the real facts of the 
case. They believed, and still believe, many of them, 
that Mr. Lincoln and the Northern people were pledged 
to the immediate abolition of slavery and the ruin of the 
South ; and that now the Abolitionists had acquired the 
reins of government, they possessed the power to carry 
out their wicked purposes, and would inevitably do so. 
The demagogues, if they knew better, instead of cor- 
recting this misconception of the people, encouraged it 
rather, and did all in their power to aggravate the evil 
and precipitate the crisis. And thus it was that igno- 
rance and knavery, as personified in the majority, and 
acting through the functions of government, have been 
mainly instrumental in bringing about this wide-spread 
ruin for no adequate cause whatever. All the facts 
which have led to this disastrous war demonstrate the 
unfitness of the democratic principles, in the present 
state of civilization, to reign alone at the foundation of 
government, and still more the unfitness of a federative 
system like this to bind together innumerable States 
possessed of populations so little qualified to deal with 
the intricate problems implicated in its general form 
and structure. In such a government, order may pre- 
vail for years, and flatter the patriot with an apparent 
realization of his fondest hopes of social perfection; 
but a day or an hour shall come at last, which will 

20* 



226 SECESSION. 

balk the calculation of years, and terminate forever the 
hopes of the philanthropist. 

But it is useless to push conjectures and arguments 
further in this direction. We can know nothing now 
with certainty as to what might or might not have taken 
place, if a different course had been pursued. What we 
do know, with only too much certainty, is the stern 
reality of the horrors that now beset us. That some- 
thing better might have been devised, we can well con- 
ceive; but how anything worse could have been hit 
upon, it is difficult to imagine. If there had been 
any just cause for secession and its inevitable conse- 
quences, or if the pretended causes which the Southern 
people so gratuitously assumed had really existed, then 
one could submit with patience and even exultation to 
the cruel sacrifices hourly demanded by the demon of 
destruction. In that case, the noble heroisms which, 
on the part of the South, already decorate the annals 
of the war, and hang like garlands around her armies, 
would give such an earnest of success that the faintest 
heart might well grow bold in the confidence of ultimate 
triumph. Emulous of so much glory, cased in the triple 
armor of a righteous quarrel, and fighting for that which 
was attainable, not one of her sons but would march with 
undoubting faith to her banner, as to the oriflamme of 
Liberty, and proudly conquer beneath its folds, or as 
proudly die in its defense. 

As it is, we can lay no such flattering unction to our 
souls. The justice of our cause was not beyond the 
reach of doubt : we did not even complain of any griev- 
ance unredressed : the oppressions against which we re- 
belled were not flagrant, — they were prospective only, 



SECESSION. 227 

they existed merely in possibility, and might or might 
not have taken place : those outrageous tyrannies which 
drive a generous people into revolt were, in our case, 
not even inchoations. Happy at home, respected abroad, 
enjoying a degree of liberty and prosperity never ex- 
perienced by any people before, our glorious country 
has been plunged into the depths of misery by the 
wanton spirit of a licentious democracy. Impelled by 
the instincts of an unmitigated selfishness, intolerant of 
law or order, we have trapped ourselves in a dilemma 
we cannot escape, either horn of which is sufiicient to 
gore us to death. For if we gain our independence, 
we shall gain only ruin in the end, since we must in- 
evitably perish by the principles for which we are con- 
tending; if, on the other hand, we are vanquished — we 
must call on the gods for mercy, not on abolitionism. 
Thus are we sacrificing the lives of our brave and gener- 
ous youths fighting for — we know not what. 

Alas ! what do I say ? Mr. Lincoln has at last, since 
the war began, furnished us with a pretext. He alone, 
as the organ of abolitionism, could have afforded seces- 
sion a plausible excuse for prolonging a strife so cause- 
lessly begun. His ill-advised proclamation, as unjust 
as it was impolitic, was alone wanting to convert a wan- 
ton rebellion into a defensive contest, and to enlist the 
heart and patriotism of the entire South in a life-and- 
death struggle for her just rights. Secession now points 
to Mr. Lincoln's abolition war policy as a verification of 
its worst fears; congratulates its sagacity in having pen- 
etrated so long beforehand into the lurking designs of 
its wily enemy; triumphantly proclaims that the war 
was not begun a day too soon; and truly declares that 



228 SECESSION. 

the Southern people have now no choice but to fight 
on, so long as the present policy is adhered to. 

Thus do we travel in a vicious circle, from which it 
seems impossible to escape. Caught up in a wliirlpool, 
made by the action and reaction upon each other of two 
evil principles, we are carried on, nearing each moment 
a vortex which must engulf us at last, unless rescued 
by some power not now visible to mortal eye. Seces- 
sion, as if envious of the national prosperity, made haste 
to mar so much happiness, and, with reckless indiffer- 
ence to consequences, precipitated the country into a 
calamity too frightful to contemplate. A generous for- 
bearance practiced long enough ; a continued prosecution 
of the war upon constitutional principles, without the 
aid of abolitionism; a magnanimous policy persisted in 
to the last; a scrupulous, even a tender, respect for 
the persons, the rights, the property of non-combat- 
ants; an unwearied perseverance in pursuing a course 
so lofty, so chivalrous, would, at a comparatively early 
day, have achieved an easy triumph over the outrageous 
revolt of the lawless principle of secession. The South 
herself, if sufficient time had been allowed her under the 
milder treatment of a constitutional regimen, would have 
recovered her reason and corrected her error much sooner 
than she is likely to do under existing circumstances. 
Her own reflection, undisturbed by subsequent provoca- 
tions, would have contributed more than all the armies 
of the North to the speedy cure of her temporary aber- 
ration. A better opportunity could not have occurred 
to prove, by example, to the South that the North had 
no evil designs upon her institution ; that in spite even 
of a provocation so flagrant as that of secession, the 



SECESSION. 229 

latter was still determined to hold by the constitution, 
and save the Union by it alone, or perish with it in the 
conflict. This would have been the sublimity of human 
virtue, and the very dignity of true manhood. An ex- 
ample so lofty, conduct so disinterested, could not have 
failed, sooner or later, to excite the emulation of the 
South, convince her of her error, and win her back to 
a sense of duty. It would have bound her heart in the 
chains of love, respect, and gratitude; and insured a 
happy reunion cemented by the ties of cordiality and 
good-will. This is the more probable, because there 
were thousands of the best men in the South who never 
gave their consent to secession from the first ; and, though 
overborne for the moment by the clamors of ignorance 
and passion, were quietly working a slow but sure reac- 
tion in public sentiment in favor of the Union. 

But this happy rectification was not destined to so 
easy an accomplishment. Difierent counsels prevailed. 
Political mountebanks were at the helm of State. Se- 
cession had a worthy rival in the field, offspring of the 
same polity, which could not afi"ord to lose an oppor- 
tunity so favorable for a little sharp practice of its own 
in the way of mischief making. It was the very occa- 
sion, aptly prepared to its hand, which abolitionism had 
been so long watching and praying for ; and now that 
secession, as if demented by the gods, had blindly fallen 
into the trap, no excuse must be afi'orded for its escape 
thence. And thus, between the two, a carnival of death 
is instituted, where demons preside, and at which hu- 
manity shudders. 

It is in vain for the South to plead this after-act of 
abolitionism in justification of her first offense. The 



230 SECESSION. 

initiative was hers : she inaugurated the war ; and his- 
tory cannot hold her innocent of the crimes now enacting 
on her soil. A consciousness of imprudence, of precipi- 
tancy, if not of guilt, must disturb her peace of mind 
amid her victories and defeats. God was not in the 
wind, nor the earthquake, nor the fire which passed by 
Elijah in Horeb's mount; but after these came a still 
small voice, which was the divinity that spoke within 
him. So must it be with the South in this day of retri- 
bution. The God of vengeance is passing by; but there 
is no deity in the slaughters of her battle-fields : they 
are evidences of the divine wrath instead. Amid these, 
the whispers of any uneasy conscience must make them- 
selves heard above the din of arms, suggesting, with 
their still small voice, that "Perhaps all was not done 
for the best: the blood of our sons might have been 
spared: their lives, after all, may have been sacrificed 
to a mistake: a little more prudence, forethought, for- 
bearance, and these ensanguined plains, now red with 
the blood of so many noble hearts fallen in vain, might 
have been blooming with the harvests of life ! And 
who are they that were appointed to think for us, to 
advise us, to lead us, and who could conduct us only to 
this ruin, to these bloody graves?" Ah, my country- 
men ! it is a fearful thing to know that many thousand 
voices are daily ascending to heaven, crying, with sobs 
and breaking hearts, for vengeance on such multitudi- 
nous crimes, or for errors little short of crimes! Re- 
flecting men should think twice, and hesitate long, before 
plunging a nation in such wholesale calamity: statesmen 
are not needed for this work of destruction — savages 
would do it as well. 



SECESSION. 231 

The amnesty of war has been most inconsiderately 
proclaimed' by a shallow philosophy, on the ground of 
the great benefits which result from it to humanity and 
civilization. This is nothing more than a justification 
of the means by the end, supposing the opinion to be 
true. But war is a huge evil, and man is not permitted 
to do evil that good may come of it. It is the province 
of God only to bring good out of evil. "It cannot be 
but that evil shall be done in the world, and that good 
will come of it, but woe be unto the evil-doer," is the 
denunciation of Heaven. There is nothing which can 
happen in this world, however disastrous for the mo- 
ment, but a benefit of some sort will grow out of it, 
sooner or later, to some one or other, simply because 
good necessarily comes of all things. But only fools 
or madmen will purposely bring wreck and ruin on the 
present in order that some unknown future advantage 
may haply spring thence. The present is wisely en- 
joined to take the best possible care of itself, and leave 
the future to do the same: if, in spite of the utmost 
precaution to stave off the evil, the future derive any 
benefit from the unavoidable misfortunes of the present, 
nothing is to be said against it. War is an abnormal 
condition of society: it seldom fails to inflict signal 
vengeance on those who bring it about, or are engaged 
in it : it is the shirt of Nessus, the gift of a malignant 
spirit to those who invoke it : it is the destruction of all 
social order, while it lasts, and the relentless enemy of 
the present. The benefits which flow from it to the 
future are no doubt consolations to posterity, but very 
inadequate compensations to the immediate sufferers: it 
is poor consolation to the victims of the middle ages 



232 SECESSION. 

that we, at this day, are reaping the advantages of their 
bloody wars. Men never divide except upon the ele- 
ments of error : about the truth there can be no differ- 
ence of opinion: in every aspect of truth, all must coin- 
cide; for truth is the faithful expression of reality. 
Wherever there is dissension, disagreement, there is 
error. It has often been said that both sides of a quar- 
rel cannot be right; that one at least must be wrong: 
it is nearer the truth to say that both are wrong. War, 
therefore, must always be absurd; for it is only error 
which causes the combat, and nothing but evil can come 
of it to the combatants. The very existence of war is 
l^rima facie evidence that there is a great wrong some- 
where, of which it is the retribution. War never occurs 
where right and equity, good sense and love of truth, 
prevail; for these make us tolerant. Internecine wars 
are the necessary concomitants of a corrupt society and 
a feeble government. A weak government indeed is 
the greatest crime which can be committed against so- 
ciety; and it is sure to bring its own punishment, in 
the shape of endless revolutions, as long as it lasts. 

The frantic intolerance which seized the Southern 
mind at the announcement of Mr. Lincoln's election, 
and the hot haste with which the entire population flew 
to arms and challenged the North to combat, as the only 
mode of redress they would accept, even before it was 
certain there was anything to redress, affords an instance 
of those moral epidemics, or national insanities, which 
happen periodically in even the best-regulated nations. 
Nothing can more clearly indicate the necessity of a 
strong government, well guarded at every point, than 
the certain recurrence of those perilous moments which, 



SECESSION. 233 

when they do happen, tear to pieces a feeble government 
such as ours was, and consign to ruin an entire genera- 
tion, perhaps the nation itself. If the government be 
strong enough to resist the first onset, time will be 
afforded for reflection, and the danger will pass away 
with the return of reason and sober thoughts. The 
people, when acting in multitudes, are always impulsive, 
inexorably cruel and reckless ; but they are also as cow- 
ardly as they are cruel, because, being as yet unorgan- 
ized, they know their weakness, and readily yield to a 
disciplined force when promptly directed against them 
with merciless vigor. If the government be too weak 
to meet thus the first shock, time will be afforded the 
insurgents for organization, and civil war ensues. 

If the government of the United States had possessed 
any portion of this so much needed strength and energy, 
the mania of the Southern people would have been in- 
noxious, and order had prevailed to this day. But the 
doctrine of State rights was stronger than the Federal 
government; and it was precisely the vigor of the former 
which had caused the feebleness of the latter. The sen- 
timent of contempt which had always been entertained 
for the Federal authority, when weighed against the sov- 
ereignty of the States, was not calculated to breed in the 
Southern mind that salutary fear of the power of gov- 
ernment which, if it had existed, would have effectually 
restrained any manifestation of its disorganizing procliv- 
ities. The fatal ease with which the South knew or 
thought she could accomplish her ideas of secession, 
contributed as much as anything else to plunge the 
country into this vortex. This was no doubt one, per- 

21 



234 SECESSION. 

haps foremost, among many other moving causes; but 
also the cruel sympathy of Mr. Buchanan's administra- 
tion, and the no less cruel tenderness and dilly-dallying 
of Mr. Lincoln's initiatory proceedings, — both of them 
results of an insufficient government, — cannot be held 
entirely innocent of aiding and abetting to fix the move- 
ment and to bring it to a head. At least, whatever 
difference of opinion may be entertained of the com- 
plicity of the two latter, there can be none as to that of 
the former. 

The doctrine of State rights had been too long j^reached 
in the South, not to be practiced there some time or 
other ; it was too great a favorite to be kept suspended 
and held in abeyance forever ; the time was at last come 
for it to manifest its quality, to show that it was as ter- 
rible in action as it was sublime in repose, and that it 
possessed all the practical efficiency that was theoretic- 
ally claimed for it. So incontestable appeared the doc- 
trine of State sovereignty, and the concurrent right of 
the States peaceably to quit the Union when they pleased, 
that few men in the South believed a gun would be fired . 
against secession. It was inconceivable to them that a 
principle, which was cotemporaneous with the existence 
of the nation, which was laid down by Mr. Calhoun, and 
the justice of which could be deduced, past all manner 
of doubt, from the terms of the compact^ should be dis- 
puted at this late day — and by whom ? By the Federal 
government ? Why, the Federal government was nothing 
but a creature of the States; the latter had created it, 
and, by their sovereign will and pleasure, could dissolve 
it. It was a mere partnership concern, voluntarily en- 
tered into by independent States for certain specified 



SECESSION. 235 

purposes ; and because the States went into it volun- 
tarily, they could go out of it at their option. 

As for the claims of civilization, the right of humanity 
to stable government and permanent security, the invio- 
lability of laws, and the reform of abuses by legal means, 
— these things were little considered, and scarcely even 
thought of by the many. The sentiment which domin- 
ated most minds was a sense of lawless liberty, the unre- 
strained freedom of doing as they pleased with their 
own; this indeed was a natural right which belonged as 
well to States as to individuals, and as such was inalien- 
able, and admitted of no qualifications; it was always 
held in reserve for fit occasions, suspended, not abol- 
ished; and the time was come for it to resume the rude 
vigor of its ferx naturse. If all other arguments fail, 
the law of revolution remains ; that right at least is 
indisputable. The right of resistance, which was insti- 
tuted by their forefathers, and constitutes the glory of 
those good old times, had come down to them unim- 
paired, and should suffer no deterioration in their hands. 
Their hearts and their arms were as stout as those of 
their ancestors, and should re-enact the splendors of the 
past. Welcome, then, the sacrament of death! for of 
no value is a nation until baptized with blood. 

Such were some of the ideas that presided at the 
grand national saturnalia of secession which was cele- 
brated with so much eclat down South little more than 
two years ago. It was, in a somewhat modified form, 
one of those orgies of liberty which have characterized 
every epoch of modern history, since the introduction 
upon its stage of those barbarians that sacked the Roman 
world, and erected upon its ruins empires of their own. 



236 SECESSION. 

A leading trait of those savage tribes was a sentiment 
of personal independence, a love of individual liberty, 
displaying itself without regard to consequences, and 
with scarcely any other aim than its own satisfaction. 
This element of their untamed nature they introduced 
into modern civilization. It was an element unknown 
among the Romans, and is scarcely perceptible in any 
of the civilizations of antiquity. "The liberty we meet 
with in ancient civilizations," says Guizot, "is political 
liberty. It was not about his personal liberty that man 
troubled himself, it was about his liberty as a citizen. 
He formed part of an association, and to this alone he 
was devoted." The liberty which the barbarian en- 
grafted on modern civilization was quite a different 
affair: it was personal, individual freedom; the right to 
do as he pleased with himself and all that belonged to 
him; the pleasure of enjoying in full force and liberty 
all his powers of mind and body, without being obliged 
to render an account to any one of his conduct. It is 
from these barbarous hordes, which overran the old 
Roman empire, that are derived the populations of all 
modern European nations. The base of this population 
is derived from the rnost sturdy, independent, licentious, 
and turbulent of those old barbarians, to wit, the old 
Norse and Scandinavian tribes, the vikings and sea- 
rovers of early times, nature's democrats, as they have 
since been called. Their wild nature has never been 
entirely eliminated from their descendants to this day; 
the same turbulence, the same licentiousness, the same 
sense of independence are yet latent in their nature; 
and however those traits of character may slumber for 
a time, they still break forth on every suitable occasion. 



SECESSION. 237 

The same is true of the element of personal freedom 
which they introduced into modern civilization, and 
which is so conspicuous in this society: that social ele- 
ment has not yet been wholly tamed down to the gentle 
restraints of law and order, nor has it yet been fully 
assimilated by conversion into institutions. The one is 
not yet the civilized man, nor the other the civilized 
principle, complete. The social natures of both require 
to be further developed before society can be perfected 
by them. In view of these elements of our population 
and society, the restraints of force, of a strong govern- 
ment, and a vigorous discipline are more needed and 
exist to a less extent here than in any nation in the 
world. 

Hence, then, the character of the ideas, enumerated 
above, which were mainly instrumental in hurrying the 
Southern people into their rash and unpremeditated 
revolution; they were identical with the democratic 
principles which have been implicated in so many sim- 
ilar revolutions in Europe, and which finally established 
themselves at the foundation of this government, and 
are only just now beginning to break out into their old 
accustomed revolts and to seek the gratification of their 
natural desire for war. Of course the Southern mind 
was, to some degree, influenced by other ideas of a 
graver character, which possessed more dignity and 
truth, and were entitled to more respect. I have only 
marked these to show the extent to which the public 
mind can be demoralized by a set of loose and disjointed 
principles acting for any length of time through the 
functions of government; and also to show how little 

21* 



238 SECESSION. 

stability and security can be looked for in a government 
where they prevail. 

The love of individual liberty is a precious sentiment 
which should never be absent from any nation or gov- 
ernment; it has produced lasting benefits wherever it 
has existed; and it is to be hoped that it will never de- 
part from the heart of man, nor ever become functus 
officio in society. The right of resistance, which flows 
directly from the above sentiment, is a sacred right 
which no sane man can wish to see abolished. If that 
principle were erased from the mind of society, it would 
be prepared to put on the shackles of servitude. But 
any government is radically vicious in which the right 
of resistance, however incontestable it may be in the 
abstract, is not practically rendered forever inactive and 
useless. Inasmuch as it is a natural right, an imper- 
ishable instinct of human nature, and cannot be ignored 
socially, it is the duty of society to absorb it, that is, to 
incorporate it into its own artificial structure, into free 
institutions, that is, again, to organize it and supply it 
with laws. Thus regulated, and armed with the full 
legalized power of the State, it needs not to break out 
into arbitrary acts and brute violence; it would have no 
occasion for revolutions; it would completely inutilize 
civil wars; it would become at once a moral and social 
force of the first magnitude; and would guarantee the 
stability of society by insuring the execution of justice 
legally. This is the great end, the chief perfection, of 
social order. 

There is a wide difference between this legal resist- 
ance, judicially established in the frame of a well-regu- 
lated society, and that lawless resistance which springs 



SECESSION. 239 

arbitrarily from individual wills, or from the caprices of 
opinion, with or without legitimate provocation, of which 
it is. the sole self-constituted and self-sufficient arbiter. 
It is clear that, where this right exists and can be exer- 
cised at pleasure, there is no security for anybody or 
anything; no legal right can coexist with it; it is a ter- 
rible antisocial right, inasmuch as its only appeal is to 
brute force, to war, which is the destruction of society 
itself. 

Such was the nature of the resistance inaugurated by 
secession at the South. But it was called into action 
by conduct no less arbitrary, lawless, and reprehensible 
at the North. Abolitionism is not a whit less guilty 
than secession. One was the inevitable consequence of 
the other ; and both resulted from the fundamental prin- 
ciples of the government. If abolitionism has a right to 
exist at the North, secession has a right to exist at the 
South: one follows the other as a logical corollary. To 
suppress forcibly secession at the South, while abolition- 
ism is allowed to prevail at the North; nay, to employ 
the latter to sit in judgment upon and punish the former ; 
to allow one guilty principle to arraign, try, convict, and 
execute sentence upon a not more guilty adversary, is a 
despotism of so vile a character that human nature shud- 
ders at the very thought of it. If one of these princi- 
ples is wrong, both are wrong; and that both are wrong 
is a fact as evident as the fact of the war which they 
have produced, or of which they have been the occasion. 
If the calamities which this war is causing, and the deso- 
lation it is bringing on the country, are moral and mate- 
rial benefits, then must abolitionism and secession be 
accounted virtues of the first water. But if the tree in 



240 SECESSION. 

this case be judged by its fruits, and the latter are so 
bitter, then how is it possible for the good men and true 
of both sides to look on the infernal confusion which 
these two devilish principles are producing, and not 
make some eifort to consign them to their place below? 
If they were angels and ministers of grace, and brought 
with them airs from heaven, and not blasts from hell, as 
they are doing, they could not be more tolerated in their 
respective sections than they seem to be. Nero fiddled 
while Rome was burning. The nation is bleeding to 
death, and not a finger is lifted to stop the effusion of 
blood. Those who are not fighting like wild beasts, are 
preying like harpies on the vitals of the land, and think 
only of turning its misfortunes to their profit. Or, per- 
adventure, like Sodom and Gomorrah, the nation is given 
up to its fate, because there are not good men enough in 
it to save it. Of the ease and rapidity with which society 
can be broken up and man degenerate toward the savage 
state, the South is now a most melancholy illustration; 
her present condition is a transient return to barbarism, 
and clearly attests the barbaric origin of the people. 
But if this much can be said of the South, what less can 
be said of the Goths and Vandals who have so needlessly 
wrought all this desolation? Their footsteps can be 
traced by the ruins they have left wherever they have 
gone ; and their cruelties and spoliations attest how 
little they have derived from their boasted civilization 
and the benevolent teachings of Christianity. 

In any case, if we would have peace and order re- 
stored and society revived, let justice, first of all, be 
done on every side; for without it, it is in vain to hope 
for peace, or order, or anything but strife and confusion. 



SECESSION. 241 

Therefore, before secession can be justly called on to lay 
down its arms, it must be shown that abolitionism has 
been suppressed, or at least relegated from the head of 
government. For, I repeat, how monstrous it is for one 
guilty principle to be placed in the chair of State to 
judge and punish an accomplice perhaps less guilty, cer- 
tainly not more so, than itself! The perpetration, under 
existing circumstances, of such an instance of injustice 
as the establishment of practical abolitionism into a prin- 
ciple of government, and even seating it in the Presi- 
dential chair, is equivalent to a consecration of endless 
rebellion. One wrong is generally the fruitful parent 
of many more. Other instances of injustice cannot fail 
to spring up by the side of one so flagrant, and in the 
end the perpetual revolt of society will be a co-ordinate 
branch of government. 

Such a state of things would by no means be a social 
novelty. It would not be the first time society was 
established on the basis of popular resistance. This 
condition, to which we appear to be drifting, would be 
exactly analogous to the social organization of the Free 
Cities of Europe in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. 
Those cities constituted the most marked feature of Eu- 
ropean civilization at that epoch; their society resembled 
our own in more respects than one; and the resemblance 
is fast becoming still more striking. Their government 
consisted of two very simple elements — the general as- 
sembly of all the inhabitants, and a magistracy invested 
with almost arbitrary power, under the responsibiUtt/ 
and surveillance of general insurrections. These popu- 
lar outbreaks were the only guarantees of good govern- 
ment; they passed into a co-ordinate branch of the 



242 SECESSION. 

constitutional organization of the corporations, and were 
as confidently looked for, and as constantly made their 
appearance, as any other municipal regulation. Guided 
as they were by the blind, licentious, furious spirit of 
democracy, they soon put an end to all security, and 
consigned the Free OitieSy like feudalism, to absorption 
by monarchy and the great empires. 

When I assert that abolitionism is directly responsible 
for secession, and make it equally guilty of the w^ar, 
there may seem to be a contradiction, in my argument, 
with the previous declaration, and even proof, that seces- 
sion was purely gratuitous and uncalled for. It is true 
that secession, as a general principle, depends not for 
its existence on abolitionism, or anything else exclu- 
sively ; but as it lurks in the fundamental principles of 
society, and there is nothing in the form of government 
to prevent it, it is liable to break out at any moment, on 
any provocation, or no provocation at all. Neverthe- 
less, in the present instance abolitionism did precede 
secession, waked it in its lair, roused its fury, and by a 
thousand taunts and threats gave direction to its rage 
by making it believe, — whether falsely or not makes no 
difference, since it was done on purpose, with malice 
aforethought and with evil intent, — by making it believe, 
I say, that the darling institution it was invoked to pro- 
tect was in danger of extinction. Whether or not the 
demagogues knew better than this is doubtful; but if a 
few intelligent men were better posted, the majority of 
the people were not, and were conscientious in their 
belief of the wrongs intended them. It was the igno- 
rant majority, therefore, a fundamental feature of the 
government and its very mainspring, which, in this in- 



SECESSION. 243 

stance, did the mischief. The South is notoriously thin- 
skinned on the subject of slavery, and is ready to take 
alarm at anything that wears the semblance of danger 
that way. Her fears once excited, she is as prompt and 
fierce in defense of her institution as a tigress of her 
cubs, and not more discriminating. If her discretion 
had been equal to her valor, the latter would have been 
less exercised than it has been of late. This blind im- 
pulse is further intensified, and perhaps rendered more 
belligerent than it might otherwise be, by the reputation 
the Southern people have somehow or other acquired of 
being the descendants of " Cavaliers," — not of ^'Round- 
heads," like the Northern people, — and of possessing all 
the "chivalry" of the land. Some fool has told them 
this, and they have no better sense than to believe it. 
The belief, whether well or ill founded, makes them as 
ready to fight as to eat, not because there is any neces- 
sity for it, or because they have more stomach that way 
than others, but because they think it incumbent on them 
to support their character of being regular Boanergeses, 
(sons of thunder.) The shrewd abolitionists, aware of 
this weakness, goaded them on to a practical assertion 
of it by the most bitter taunts they could think of: they 
told them their chivalry was nothing but gas; that "they 
could not be kicked out of the Union;" dared them to 
try to leave it, and they would soon be kicked back ; 
and then there was something about "blue cockades" 
being as scarce as "blue roses" round about Charleston 
as soon as a United States frigate made its appearance 
there, or something to that effect. This childish non- 
sense had more effect than one would suppose: it was 
more than so much puerile vanity and conceit could 



244 SECESSION. 

stand : like a parcel of school-boys they had been dared^ 
and at once determined that it was unbecoming "South- 
ern chivalry" to take a dare from a set of canting, puri- 
tanical snobs: the prick-eared knaves should "be made 
to feel Southern steel and smell Southern poAvder," etc. 
This may seem a rather ridiculous analysis of seces- 
sion; but trivial as these causes appear, when predicated 
of a great nation waging gigantic wars, and marching 
majestically along the grand highway of history, they 
were not without their influence, and ought not to be 
overlooked ; nor are they more puerile than the motives 
which have ever influenced mankind in the production 
of history through all past ages. When dramatically 
written, and carefully winnowed of the personalities, 
passions, vanities, and base motives, which are always 
the secondary or immediate causes of its details, history 
reads very loftily, and gives one sublime ideas of the 
dignity of human nature. But history, too, has its gro- 
tesque and vulgar side, its ridiculous and comic aspect. 
M. Cousin has said something like this; and he has also 
said there are no individuals in great wars and battles, 
only their causes appear there. But the cotemporary, 
the actual spectator, sees nothing else but individuals: 
they crowd the stage of history and fill the fields of 
battle, they and their miserable little passions ; and, 
however trivialities may vanish from the philosopliy of 
history, they alone occupy its annals. We may also 
learn from this analysis that the majority of men, what- 
ever they may become hereafter, are yet little more than 
grown-up children; and if society is ever destined to 
escape the inconveniences arising from their unruly im- 
pulses, they must still be subjected to the discipline of a 



SECESSION. 245 

species of government not greatly dissimilar from that 
exercised over children. 

Now, if the South had felt that confidence in the capa- 
city and inclination of the Federal government to protect 
her interest, which every government ought to inspire in 
its subjects, it is hardly probable she would have resorted 
to arms to protect herself. And it is unquestionably 
true that if the government had possessed the requisite 
amount of strength, and been dispossessed of its party 
character, abolitionism never could have culminated to 
that summit of power at which the South became so 
alarmed; and, in all probability, neither abolitionism 
nor secession had ever been heard of. The South, 
therefore, should no more be held to a criminal account- 
ability for secession than the North for abolitionism ; 
for it is well known the Abolitionists advocated the same 
measure as a means of accomplishing their unconstitu- 
tional designs, and were only prevented from carrying it 
into execution by the want of strength to do so. "The 
Union," to use their own words, "was a league with hell 
and a compact with the devil," and the sooner it could 
be made to "slide," the better. Hence the insults they 
heaped upon the Southern people, and their successful 
efforts in making the latter a cat's-paw to effect their own 
ruin. If secession, therefore, be a capital offense, as no 
doubt it is, the plea of se defeiidendo is clearly admis- 
sible in extenuation of punishment. In any case, the 
Abolitionists ought to be the last to bring accusations 
against it. To be consistent and just, they ought to 
recuse the case; and common sense and common equity 
would sustain the recusation. 

But granting secession to have been an anachronism, 
22 



246 SECESSION. 

and therefore wrong, when it was first instituted as a 
means of self-defense, because the South was not then 
directly assailed by any overt act of aggression, and 
because it was unknown what might or might not have 
been the future policy of Mr. Lincoln's administration, 
the subsequent adoption by that administration of the 
abolition programme changes the entire aspect of the 
case. The indorsement by the Federal government of 
the abolition policy, as manifested in its conduct of the 
war, no matter from what cause it was made, puts the 
South legitimately on the defensive, and keeps it there 
as long as its rights are thus assaulted. Leaving out of 
view altogether the constitutionality of the question, and 
the belligerent right of "military necessity," the ques- 
tion resolves itself into one of a predetermined policy, a 
foregone conclusion; and the nature of this policy, of 
this predetermination, depends entirely upon the mii- 
mus of the Federal administration and of the Northern 
people. What, then, is the ulterior purpose, the prin- 
cipal aim, of the Federal administration? Is the pur- 
pose a single one, or does it include the accomplishment 
of more than one design in the same end ? And does 
the administration, in the adoption of that purpose, 
whatever it may be, single or multiple, truly represent 
the wishes of the Northern people? Is it the design of 
the administration, first of all, to make use of the war 
as a suitable occasion, aptly prepared to its hand, for 
the abolition of slavery, as a prime consideration and 
end to be achieved for its own sake ? And is it further 
the purpose of the administration to confiscate the prop- 
erty of the South, or any portion of it? or to deprive 
her of any of her political rights ? or to inflict any other 



SECESSION. 247 

species of punishment upon the Southern people, or upon 
any portion of them? If these be the fell purposes of 
the administration, and they accord with the wishes of 
the Northern people, then there is nothing more to be 
said about it. If they have the power to execute these 
designs, to carry out such purposes, to accomplish such 
wishes, no one of course can prevent them; the might, 
in this case, gives the right. But, then, it is clear this 
foregone policy of the Federal government must also 
predetermine the course of the Southern people. Their 
all is at stake; and their enemy leaves them no choice 
but, win or lose, to stand the hazard of the die>: they 
must take counsel only of necessity, derive their inspi- 
ration from a single alternative, and, with the generous 
courage of a noble despair, die with arms in their hands; 
and that they will thus dare to die, who that knows them 
will dare to doubt? 

From this view of the case it follows that, though 
originally in the wrong, the South has changed places 
with the Federal government, and is actually forced, by 
the policy of the latter, to continue the war as long as 
she can. While her dearest interests are assailed, and 
the very existence of her society and of everything she 
possesses in the world is threatened, the South is de- 
prived, by the peculiar attitude of the Federal govern- 
ment, of even the ability, much more the inclination, to 
enter into any compromise looking to a restoration of 
the Union under the constitution: because such a com- 
promise would" be nothing else but a compact with her 
avowed enemy, who, in making it, surrenders no aggres- 
sive right, but maintains the same hostile posture to the 
last. It would be the dictation of dishonorable terms 



248 SECESSION. 

by a conqueror to a conquered people. It would be 
to restore the Union without the equal benefits of the 
Union. It would be to reinstate the constitution with- 
out conceding to the South an equal participation in the 
rights conferred by the constitution. It would be, in 
short, only a miserable parologism, a contradiction of 
terms, a conclusion unauthorized by the premises, false 
in logic, false in principle, false, above all, to that mag- 
nanimous nobility of nature which should characterize a 
great and free people, who, loving liberty for its own 
sake, should scorn to impose servile terms upon their 
erring. brothers. Rather let the fatted calf be killed in 
honor of the returning prodigals, and the past be for- 
given and forgotten in a cordial reunion of hearts as 
well as of States ; or if the past must be remembered at 
all, let it be remembered only to correct the errors which 
have led to such disastrous results. 

But there is one other consequence which flows from 
this policy of the Federal government and the Northern 
people — if such indeed be their policy. By its adoption 
of practical abolitionism, as manifested in its conduct of 
the war, — to say nothing of the wholesale confiscation 
which is threatened, — the administration at Washington 
ceases to be a General government of the entire nation, 
constitutionally administered upon principles of equal 
and impartial justice, and degenerates into — what was 
a foregone conclusion of the democratic principles — 
purely and exclusively a government of party. It was 
equally conclusive from the first that this ruling party 
must ultimately become purely sectional, residing in a 
particular portion of the common country rather than 
in another, favoring the peculiar interest of that section, 



SECESSio]?^. 249 

and of course become antagonistic to some other interest, 
which it must in time destroy. It is precisely to this 
point onr politics have at last arrived, on the supposition 
of the foregoing policy being adhered to and fully car- 
ried out; and this war must be considered as being the 
last term, the necessary consequence of the fundamental 
principles of this government. As long, then, I repeat, 
as her present belligerent attitude is forced upon her by 
the continuance of these facts, the South has no choice 
but to carry on the war to the last extremity; and if 
she must perish by superior force, she will at least 
perish with her harness on, and fighting like a nation 
that deserves to be free. 

To disarm secession, therefore, or to put it in the 
wrong and keep it there, it is first of all incumbent on 
the Washington administration to plant itself immova- 
bly on the constitution, disavow abolitionism, and by its 
method of conducting the war afford the South no pre- 
text for a longer continuance of her disorganizing be- 
havior. This change of war-policy on the part of the 
Federal administration will be a prelude to other things : 
it will be the first note of a summons to parley : it will 
prepare the Southern mind to listen to the voice of 
reason, and return to a sense of duty, a duty it owes 
to itself, to the nation, to humanity, to civilization. 
The concession thus far will be mutual, and the pride 
or honor or interests of neither party need be considered 
as having been compromised. The Federal government 
at least will have rectified its error, will have made the 
amende honorable; and if the South, after her bitter 
experience, refuse to meet advances thus made in the 
spirit of candor and good fellowship, she must bear the 



250 CONCLUSION. 

responsibility of whatever consequences may follow her 
contumacy. But it is not anticipated by those who 
know the state of the public mind at the South, that if 
the foregoing conditions be fulfilled by the Federal gov- 
ernment, any serious dijfficulty will remain in the way of 
reconciliation. ' 

Conclusion. 

I will not encumber these pages with specifications of 
organic changes which may seem to be required by the 
general welfare in the structure of government. I have 
already said enough to indicate the general character of 
those alterations which, in my opinion, are peremptorily 
demanded, not perhaps as prerequisites of a reconstruc- 
tion of the Union, but as indispensable to its perpetuity 
thereafter. It is not for me to particularize those 
changes. I shall not endanger the favorable reception 
of these remarks by descending to minutias, about which 
all minds may disagree. It is for the assembled wisdom 
of the nation to determine what those fundamental modi- 
fications shall be, and to introduce such specific innova- 
tions into the'form of our government as the nature of 
the case may seem to require. 

That those necessary alterations will ever be volun- 
tarily made, or this war suddenly arrested and a peace- 
able reconstruction of the Union effected by compromise, 
is more than the most sanguine dare hope for. If it 
should be so, it will be the first time in the history of 
the world that a great revolution has been arrested in 
mid career, and turned back upon itself, by the wise 
forethought of the very persons who began it. Such 



CONCLUSION. 251 

an achievement would be the glory of the age, and the 
triumph of civilization over the passions of mankind. 
It would proclaim the approach of a social science des- 
tined to illumine the world, and to countermand revolu- 
tions for all time to come. 

But this is almost too bright a vision for the human 
imagination to indulge. It is to be feared the time is 
not yet come for so much illumination, and that this 
revolution must run the usual career of violence and 
bloodshed. There is something deeply melancholy in 
the contemplation of a spectacle so fraught with ruin 
and desolation brought on themselves by men who aim 
only at realizing their ideas of social order. But in all 
great events of this kind, how many ignorant and "dis- 
astrous efforts must be made, before the successful one!" 
Human ignorance is the fruitful source of all the woes 
that afflict human society. It is sad to see a great 
nation, like a sightless Polyphemus, deprived of the 
light of reason, hurling destruction around, because it 
knows not what else to do, what it wants, or how to 
right its wrongs. Helpless in our ignorance, we can 
only weep over so much heroism wasted, so much blind 
effort misdirected, so much brute force abused. But is 
not the loss of so much courage, of so many sacrifices 
and endeavors, of so much virtue, a sorrowful sight ? It 
is true, as Guizot remarks of these revolutions, that 
Providence, upon all such occasions, in order to accom- 
plish His designs, is prodigal of courage, virtues, sacri- 
fices — finally of man; and it is only after a vast number 
of ignorant attempts apparently lost — after a host of 
noble hearts have fallen into despair — convinced that 
their cause was ruined — that it triumphs at last. 



^Ab'l CONCLUSION, 

Such has ever been the nature of the painful progress 
of society through the dreary ages of the past. Revo- 
lution after revolution, each apparently more disastrous 
than the other, have brought it thus far forward on its 
bloody path, only to consign it, alas! to another, which 
still repeats the sad story of man's endless failures to 
realize his ideas of order and happiness. This is what 
is called the spontaneous development of civilization, 
directed solely by the blind forces of nature. But there 
is another species of development, — it is the reflective 
method by which the social evolution unfolds itself, 
guided by reason and the wise forethought of enlight- 
ened statesmen, and an intelligent community who study 
social laws, and by their knowledge of them give to 
civilization the direction it wishes to take. 

At an earlier period, the very existence of laws which 
were perpetually transforming society in spite of itself 
was not even suspected; hence the blind struggles, the 
fruitless efforts, the ruinous endeavors that were made 
to resist them. But now we know more than was known 
then; and it is our disgrace and our punishment that 
we make so little use of this knowledge. We thrust 
forward presumptuous demagogues, whom we call states- 
men, and seem not to know that our ills are come of 
their ignorance. The eagles being retired from our 
political sky, these birds of night come forth, and brood 
all our woes. When, therefore, our errors recoil upon 
ourselves, and we know not what else to do, we fall to 
cutting each other's throats. This we call statesman- 
ship ; and our great men are they who can do only this. 

If the foregoing remarks have disclosed anything, 
they have discovered to us the " danger, the evil, the 



coxcLusiox. 253 

insurmountable vice of absolute power." It matters 
not where this power may reside, whether in one man 
or in many, in a monarch or a majority, in a king or 
the people ; nor by whatsoever name it may be called, 
whether a theocracy, an aristocracy, a monarchy, or a 
democracy, — its effects in every case are the same; and 
it is never otherwise than destructive of the main ends 
for which society is established. Wherever a single 
principle controls the movement of society, there ty- 
ranny is inevitable ; for nothing is more complex than 
social interests, and if but one principle be allowed at 
the basis of government, then only one interest will be 
represented, which will dominate all others. It is the 
duty, and should be the peculiar event of our time, to 
recognize the important fact that all power, whether 
belonging to governments or people, bears within itself 
a natural vice, a tendency to abuse, is accompanied 
wdth an almost invincible craving to exercise and diffuse 
itself, which call for the most stringent limitations that 
human ingenuity can impose upon it. In systems of 
government, the only method of limiting political forces 
is by admitting all principles, interests, rights, to a full 
representation in the frame of society; to give to all 
these "a free manifestation and legal existence;" and 
to so adjust all that they shall check and balance, with- 
out destroying each other. "Nothing but a system 
which insures all this, can restrain every particular 
force or power within its legitimate bounds, and prevent 
it from encroaching on the others." This is one social 
law with ^vliich we are now well acf4uainted; and we 
know equally well that such are not the terms of our 

23 



254 CONCLUSION. 

social system; but that democracy reigns there alone, 
and tyrannizes every other interest. 

We have also discovered, in the course of this investi- 
gation, one other fact of no little importance. We have 
learned that principles of order and progress should co- 
exist in the same social system ; that both security and 
movement, stability and advancement, conservatism and 
amelioration are essential to social existence. Every 
system which contains not this double advantage, this 
compound virtue, is vicious, incompetent, and is speedily 
abandoned. Any system, to be permanent, must pro- 
vide for order for the present and progress for the 
future. We are but too well aware that our social sys- 
tem is not built upon this plan: that its foundation is 
too narrow: although it pretends to be founded upon 
the broad basis of the whole people, it is not so in 
reality, for there is but one force, one interest, one 
principle of human nature there. We know, therefore, 
we cannot but know, that the failure of our system is 
due to the absence of general interests and general 
ideas: that everything about it is, as yet, too special, 
too individual, too local: that its government of the 
majority is nothing else but the government of party: 
that this party government must ultimately become 
purely sectional : that the federative compact is nothing 
but a system of voluntary obedience, which is equivalent 
to no obedience at all: that the policy of the govern- 
ment depends at all times upon the caprices of indi- 
vidual opinions : that at this very moment the govern- 
ment is lending itself to the passions of fanaticism; 
and that, finally, a long and powerful process of cen- 
tralization is needed, before our society can become at 



CONCLUSION. 255 

once extensive, solid, and regular — objects which all 
societies necessarily seek to attain. 

The only parallel to this state of things which the his- 
tory of modern times affords is that of Italy ; and the 
condition of utter decomposition to which we are hast- 
ening renders the parallel all the closer and the lesson 
it teaches so much the more instructive. I cannot do 
better here than to close these remarks by a quotation 
from M. Guizot's able work on the History of European 
Civilization, in which he so well describes the melan- 
choly condition of Italy, arising mainly from the same 
causes which are about to subject our unhappy country 
to a similar fate. The quotation will be found at pages 
220, 221 of the second volume, edited in this country by 
Professor Henry, of the University of the City of New 
York. 

"In looking at the history of the Italian republics, 
from the eleventh to the fifteenth century, we are struck 
with two facts, seemingly contradictory, yet still indis- 
putable. We see passing before us a wonderful display 
of courage, of activity, and of genius ; an amazing pros- 
perity is the result: we see a movement and a liberty 
unknown to the rest of Europe. But if we ask what 
was the real state of the inhabitants, how they passed 
their lives, what was their real share of happiness, the 
scene changes; there is perhaps no history so sad, so 
gloomy: no period, perhaps, during which the life of 
man appears to have been so agitated, subject to so 
many deplorable chances, and which so abounds in dis- 
sensions, crimes, and misfortunes. Another fact strikes 
us at the same moment: in the political life of the greater 
part of these republics, liberty was always growing less 



256 CONCLUSION. 

and less. The want of security was so great that the 
people were unavoidably driven to take shelter in a sys- 
tem less stormy, less popular, than that in which the 
State existed. Look at the history of Florence, Venice, 
Genoa, Milan, Pisa; in all of them we find the course 
of events, instead of aiding the progress of liberty, in- 
stead of enlarging the circle of institutions, tending to 
repress it ; tending to concentrate power in the hands 
of a smaller number of individuals. In a word, we find 
in these republics, otherwise so energetic, so brilliant, 
and so rich, two things wanting — security of life, the 
first requisite in the social state, and the progress of 
institutions. 

"From these causes spring a new evil, which prevented 
the attempt at republican organization from extending 
itself. It was from without — it was from foreign sov- 
ereigns — that the greatest danger was threatened to 
Italy. Still this danger never succeeded in reconciling 
the republics, in making them all act in concert; they 
were never ready to resist in common the common 
enemy. This has led many Italians, the most enlight- 
ened, the best patriots, to deplore, in the present day, 
the republican system of Italy in the middle ages, as 
the true cause which hindered it from becoming a na- 
tion; it was parceled out, they say, into a multitude of 
little States, not sufiiciently master of their passions to 
confederate, to constitute themselves into one united 
body. The regret that the country has not, like the 
rest of Europe, been subjected to a despotic centraliza- 
tion which would have formed it into a nation, and 
rendered it independent of the foreigner. 

"It appears, then, that republican organization, even 



CONCLUSIOX. 257 

under the most favorable circumstances, did not contain, 
at this period, any more than it has done since, the 
principle of progress, duration, and extension. We 
may compare, up to a certain point, the organization 
of Italy, in the middle ages, to that of ancient Greece. 
Greece, like Italy, was a country covered with little 
republics, always rivals, sometimes enemies, and some- 
times rallying together for a common object. In this 
comparison the advantage is altogether on the side of 
Greece. There is no doubt, notwithstanding the fre- 
quent iniquities that history makes known, but that 
there was much more order, security, and justice in the 
interior of Athens, Lacedsemon, and Thebes, than in the 
Italian republics. See, however, notwithstanding this, 
how short was the political career of Greece, and what 
a principle of weakness it contained in this parceling 
out of territory and power. No sooner did Greece 
come in contact with the great neighboring States, with 
Macedon and Rome, than she fell. These little repub- 
lics, so glorious and still so flourishing, could not coalesce 
to resist. How much more likely was this to be the case 
in Italy, where society and human reason had made no 
such strides as in Greece, and consequently possessed 
much less power!" 

This reads like what might have been the future his- 
tory of the innumerable little republics which secession, 
if it were able, would set free on this continent. The 
ruin of the nations of antiquity was owing to the small- 
ness of their extent. Their diminutive size exposed 
them almost exclusively to the influence of individual 
passions, and delivered them up a prey to those social 
vermin, the demagogues. One man could communicate 



258 CONCLUSION. . 

his passions, from the stand of the orator, to the whole 
Athenian republic, and, in an instant, transport them 
into the wildest excesses.* The wars of the middle ages 
are attributable to pretty much the same cause. Greece, 
by the pure force of individual genius, rushed like a 
meteor to the zenith of power, blazed for a solitary in- 
stant in the dazzled eyes of the world, then sank in 
darkness forever : her society had no broad foundation 
in the full development of all the elements of human 
nature: the revolution of ideas was hindered by the 
overbearing influence of individual passions : in disturb- 
ing the empire of intelligence, they retarded its devel- 
opment. The same is true of all ancient communities. 
Troy, Carthage, and other nations, whose territorial 
extent was confined to little more than the mural limits 
of a city, were extinguished each by a single blow, and 
went out like falling stars. England was once a hep- 
tarchy, with seven kings and as many independent 
nations; and her life was a state of perpetual warfare, 
like that of kites and daws and wild beasts: nor was 
she an exaggerated type of most of the medieval States. 
Similar causes cannot produce dissimilar results : there 
is no reason to believe that this country, similarly par- 
titioned, could escape a similar fate. Italy is only just 
now beginning to experience the commencement of that 
political convergence which alone can give her the im- 
portance which is her due among the great powers of 
the earth. At the same moment, and with such an ex- 
ample in her eyes, a portion of this already great and 
rising nation is spending her blood and treasure, with a 
prodigality which is without a precedent, in order to 

* See M. Jouffroy on Philosophy of Histoi-y. 



CONCLUSION. 259 

reduce herself and the nation to the woeful plight from 
which Italy is escaping with so much difficulty. 

But it is useless to run this parallel further, since it 
is morally and physically impossible that such a catas- 
trophe can befall us in this age, when, by the laws of a 
political gravity, the most stupendous recombinations 
are taking place among the powers of the world, and 
when mighty empires alone can command that sense of 
security, permanence, and respect so dear to the heart 
of man. Happily, the nature of modern civilization 
and the laws of geography save us from the danger. 

This process of decomposition was begun too soon or 
too late. It matters not now what may be the imme- 
diate verdict of this war: it may decide for or against 
the cause its martial arrays were impanneled to try: its 
ultimate consequences are quite another thing; they 
appear not in the fight; they summoned no armies to 
the field ; no man thinks of them, or battles for them ; 
but, while other issues occupy exclusive attention, while 
the poor motives of the immediate actors appear to direct 
the strife, they alone remain the last resolution, the im- 
perishable residuum of the conflict. These ulterior con- 
sequences, so important but so invisible, depend not so 
much upon the will of man as upon the force of things ; 
that force, which is sometimes called Providence, which 
leaves forever behind the past and determines the future, 
and by which the world is carried forward instead of 
backward, that force is beyond human control; all that 
man can do is to observe its movement and follow its 
direction: if he go counter to its tendency, he will be 
crushed by the collision ; it still proceeds athwart human 
designs to its own ends. 



260 CONCLUSION". 

The magnificent destiny of this nation is predeterm- 
ined and inevitable. Its integrity is already placed 
beyond the reach of any man or set of men to destroy 
it. Though the nation be severed for a time, it will re- 
unite in firmer bonds. It is borne to empire on the 
current of fate. The accumulated energies of many 
thousand years, of the entire past, are converging to its 
defense, and are pledged to its aggrandizement. Take 
courage, then, you whom Providence raises up in these 
wretched days. What seems to be the hour of disso- 
lution, is but the beginning of a higher existence. A 
germ of future life is fermenting in the bosom of this 
corruption. The horrors we now witness are not the 
pangs of death, but the throes of a mighty parturition. 
Though it be amid the clash of arms, and millions be 
slain in obedience to the bloody rites of a barbarous 
ignorance, forth from this hecatomb of slaughtered vic- 
tims will issue a new birth, which shall terminate the 
lawless interregnum of force, and renew the youth of 
humanity. This Avatar of the future, with which the 
womb of Time is now so rich, will come in the panoply 
of Peace; it will be the transformation of society; it 
will combine order with progress, conservatism with 
amelioration ; it will give us Liberty with Law'S, and 
Government ^vitiiout Oppression. 

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